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June 30, 2005
Good so far
Wuhoo! I rode home again last night! I persevered, even as guys laughed at me (I think) in Spanish. I did it! It kicks my ass, but I did it!
We got some food, then went and bought 3 bags of stones (60# each!) and 8 bags of soil. By the time we got back home, it was 9, but I was still wound up, so I went out with my shears and started killing things.
I was aiming at doing 15 minutes (the old flylady saw), but I fell in and came in only after Sweetie came out in the porch, and I noticed it was quickly getting dark. Still, I managed to get a lot of wisteria and clematis out of the rose bushes, and now it's much clearer how much remains. Tremendously satisfying!
And somehow, I sprang out of bed this morning, and went immediately into the shower. Then, I immediately started cooking breakfast. If I hadn't fallen into the couch, maybe I would have gotten to work on time. But I was only 8 minutes late, and I got everything done at home that I wanted to, so that's really a step in the right direction.
I rode the bike in today, again. Almost like a habit, this is. I couldn't find the nifty HRM/timer watch, so I went by the clock on the bicycle. I left the house at 7:47. I got into work at 8:07. I was on the elevator by 8:08. Damn! So it is as fast as scootering. And it's probably about the same amount of time to get home too.
It's nice to feel like I'm back in gear again. I'm hopeful that this is the first step in the right direction.
June 29, 2005
Scattered
Heaven knows, I'm trying. I'm trying, dammit!!
I'm trying to have a good day. The supports are there. So why isn't it working??
Last night I had an awful headache from work, but I made myself go to mat pilates, which was a really good idea. It ended up being a class of 4, and we worked on doing things slowly and precisely. My belly aches this morning, though I don't have the all over ache that I had after the ball class. I need more of that.
This morning, I had this feeling of being a bit bummed out even before I left for work. Part of it, of course, was my inability to get moving in a timely fashion. I had this pang of nostalgia for when Sweetie and I used to go in together to work. And I was guaranteed to get in early, to have time to go to the gym. Now, I fend for myself, which means I get nowhere fast.
It's not something he and I have talked about, though it's probably a huge relief for him to not have to cattle-prod me through the morning regime. But I miss it.
....
Okay, I just got back from lunch with Sweetie and some therapeutic yarn buying. I feel better.
Anyways, this morning I rode the bicycle in, which is always a pleasure, and I also wore my heart rate watch, which has a timer function. I was going to get to the bottom of this and see if the times between scooting and cycling were comparable or not. Yeah!
I'm riding in, and as usual I look in the church parking lot to see if Sara's car is there. Hey, it is. And, hey, there's Sara, so I stop and we chat. I get a few blocks away and realize—I didn't stop the timer. Oh well. I probably spent 5 minutes chatting.
The rest of the ride in is unremarkable, except that I make it to my garage in 18:58 minutes according to the bike computer. Wuhoo! Speed demon! If I keep improving at this rate, why, in two years I'll just have to get on the bike to be at work!
I get up to my desk, and there's a small crisis, naturally, which I take care of, and later, I realize that I never turned off the timer! 38:24. Oh well, so much for data collection.
It was about that time that I also realize that I forgot my wallet. It's in my motorcycle hoodie, hanging from the coat tree in the dining room. Sigh!
I'm so sick of being so scattered. On Monday, I gave a guy directions to get to Powells Bookstore as if we were on the 14 Hawthorne bus. Unfortunately, we were on the 6 MLK. Lucky for this guy, somebody else jumped in and said, this bus isn't going to Burnside, it's going to PSU! Ooops.
I'm looking forward to the weekend. And yard work. Hopefully tonight, I can do some vicious plant killing, some straw-bale-raised bed building, and, some finding of the butterfly bush, which is currently covered with blackberry. The thought of killing blackberries sounds very good indeed!
Diversion
I saw this a few days ago, and it's been occupying part of my brain since. So, that's the warning. But if you're in the mood for a catchy jingle, and some scooter eyecandy, and/or if you speak Italian, you might really like this:
http://www.cristiancontini.it/images/LambrettTwist.mpg
June 28, 2005
grumble
Today has just been one of those days. I didn't even see it coming.
I rode in this morning and made it in record time -- just short of 19 minutes! I also learned that the timer stops when the bicycle stops, so, ummm, is this bike really any faster than the last? Not that it matters, I like this one so much better, but, you know, data is data.
So I was happy and calm and all that this morning, and then I started working, and then everything went straight downhill. I spent my lunch doing retail therapy... but what else are you supposed to do when you start work at 7:30, and you get your lunch at 2:30, exactly?
I have a headache, and I'd just like to shave my head. I can't let myself make important decisions like hair when I'm in such a mood.
June 27, 2005
Filling up, and spilling over
I got a project done that I've been sweating at work, then went home on Friday. My stress level had hit a new high, and my body was just not cooperating. Though, amazingly, I felt much better when I got home. No doubt the bike ride helped. Though the bike ride hurt too. I just wasn't feeling that great, and the trek up the hill wasn't that fun.
Saturday morning, I thankfully felt okay. I ran late, as usual, and missed seeing the purples step off, so I got a map and just started walking. It was overcast and cool—it looked like it might rain. I decided, for some reason, that I would do intervals.
I have no idea where I got this, so don't try this at home, but the intervals I decided to do were based on the alarms on my heart rate monitor. So first I warmed up for 15 minutes. Then, I walked as fast and hard as I could until I hit 85% HR. Then, I'd slack until I hit 65%. Rinse, repeat. Except, once I started to catch up with humanity, or as humanity began to catch up with me, I'd start speeding up when I was trying to slow down, or vice versa.
So I did the intervals for the first 6 miles. Now you might be saying to yourself, gosh, I don't think that VJ has talked about doing any real walking for weeks, and you would be, in fact, correct, so why did I think that doing intervals would be a good idea? Well, why indeed? Suffice to say: they were not a good idea.
But, in spite of that, I was very happy to be out on a real walk. I got thinking about my walking route website idea and got really into it. I was enjoying saying hi to people, and looking at things, noticing the madrone growing along the trail, complete with hacking homeless person. Hmm, does he have TB? Yikes. I liked looking up at the road, way up high, and the caverns carved out by homeless people. I liked seeing the giant eagles nests on platforms above the electrical towers. I saw two crosses along the route, up off the trail, and I wondered who and why?
A runner who looked incredibly like Athanasia Tsoumeleka (the 2004 Olympic Racewalking champion) stopped and pointed out a bald eagle, perched on a stump in the swamp. The eagle appeared to be just hanging out, waiting for breakfast, and enjoying a little out-of-the-nest-time. I watched it for a long time. Then, as I softened my focus on the entire swamp, I could see that it was entirely infested with blue herons. I've never seen so many in one place ever.
I also spotted a beaver. In the wild. Damn!
So, the non-intervals 6 miles was less fun. I was moving slow, heart-rate was up, and I kept thinking about this Mac store in town that was having a garage sale, and it really was on the way back into town. I'd just need to walk, I dunno, six blocks out of the way. But I was afraid that if I did, I'd not finish the walk. Well, yes. So, I finished the walk. Slowly.
Afterwards, I did run to the garage sale, and it was just eMacs and G4 towers at that point. Poop. I talked to one of the sales guys, and he said that everything good was gone by 9:30. It was 10:30 now. Oh well.
After the ice bath and lunch, Sweetie and I went scootering to do some errands. We stopped at Ptown, we stopped at my fav yarn shop, and then, we spotted the Multnomah County Bike Fair, so we stopped and checked it out.
One of the things I absolutely love about Portland is its embrace of the kooky quirky contingent. Here, there are two types of bicyclists, not entirely mutually exclusive: there's the serious spandex-wearing bicyclists riding expensive fast bikes that do Seattle-to-Portland and Cycle Oregon—the athletes, and then there are the d-i-y bicycles, usually riding hand-me-downs or thrifted bikes, wearing, well, not a lot of spandex—the human-powered activists.
We have a local organization, Shift2Bikes, that tends more towards the latter. They do a monthly breakfast on the bridges for bicyclists, and they have a great calendar that you can post your bike events. They sponsored Pedalpalooza this year, and thus, the MCBF.
The fair was full of all sorts of quirky, d-i-y stuff. A smoothie stand whose blenders were powered by a bike with a generator. Our local zine folks. And, a stage area for performances, music and bicycle related.
I was so excited and I immediately started talking about bicycling down to the park. Sweetie reminded me that I had just overdone it, and maybe I should hold off on the cycling. Okay.
After a nap and a quick dinner, I scooted back to the Fair to do some documentation. I got there at the end of the last event, the Tallbike jousting, damn it! But as I hung out, there was suddenly this free-for-all, where lots of people were jumping on their bikes and riding around in circles. There were tall bikes, of course, a homemade recumbent whirly-bike, a longbike, and lots and lots of people enjoying themselves.
It was just beautiful. Here it was, a sunny warm evening, with the shade from trees here and there, and lots of people were out. Normal looking people, and people who had obviously dressed for the occasion. Vibrant and alive.
I want to be part of this. Yes!
The highlight of the next day was getting the strawbales. I promised myself, if I cut the grass, I'd see if any Feed and Seeds were open, and there was one. So I hightailed over there, got a couple of galvanized containers that I'll use as planters (thanks Fran!), and then decided to get strawbales.
See, you can build raised bed garden plots with strawbales. I've done it before.
So, I bought 4. I had sweetie's truck, and I was surprised to see that three fit nicely in his bed, but the fourth one had to go on top. Hell, the last time I bought straw bales, I was single, and I got 4 of them in my car, which is not terribly big.
Did I tie it down? Why tie it down? Ha ha ha ha! So of course, the bale flew off the truck in the middle of an intersection, in the middle of two 5 lane roads.
I managed to get the damn thing out of the street. But then I found that I couldn't lift it. Even by the strings. Damn it! Long story shorter, it was the help of strangers, 4 of them, that got the bale back into the truck, where I tied it down.
June 26, 2005
vision and venture
Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.
—Vaclav Havel
(from Getting Things Done)
June 24, 2005
Twarted
Last night, my sweetie made me a burger. Oh! Burgers at home are so good, so superlative, so absolutely wonderful, and even the best burger out can't compare. Last night, we had avocado on them. Avocado!!
Then, I scooted to pilates. Except, our instructor had gotten a sub, so it was ball class. It seems that the majority of us didn't come on Tuesday, so none of us knew it would be ball class, and we all privately grumbled that we would have stayed home or gone home if we had known. Still, the instructor was very nice, and very good, and both verbalized and demonstrated the exercises.
It was hard! My balance, while greatly improved, still sucks, so, everything had this new degree of difficulty. But that was good, and at the end, I really felt well worked. I feel like I'm more a part of the group now. Slowly, I am learning names. Slowly, I'm hearing personal stories. Yay! And today, many parts of me are achy.
...
So, I am still on the must-de-asthma-ify-the-house campaign. This morning's act was to take apart the living room aircleaner to clean out the filter, which according to the indicator was dirty. It took a few minutes to actually even find the door on the aircleaner, and then once it was found, it took another few minutes to open it. Would it be so hard to design in a little grip for users, so it would be clear where and how to open the device?—afterall, they are, hopefully, going to clean the filters.
So, I get the door open, and I find the filter easily. Great. There are no instructions on how to clean said filter. Hmmm. How hard would it be to have something on the inside of the device, where the user could read it, that would say how to clean the filter?
So, I go looking for the manual. I look through common piles, through my stuff, through Sweetie's. No luck. Hmmm. I even look in the manual file. No luck.
Oh, says me, silly girl, everything is online now. I just need to look on the web. So I go over to the airfilter, and marvel at the fact that it has no brandnames on it. There's an IFD logo, there's a HEPA thing, but nothing about the brand, or heavens forbid, model number. Grumble!!!
How hard can this be, really? Well, it seems, impossible. I looked at Honeywell's site, and all I could find there were Whole House Solutions. At-at-at-hhhhmm! (That would be the sound of me clearing my throat) That's nice, but hows about the whole room solution that I spent $200 for?
And, I can't let this damn thing go. Now I'm at work, and I checked the home despot web site, and there it is, and it's manufactured by a company I've never heard of, and so I go to their site, and their site is also infuriating, and it appears they don't have any documentation for my model. Sigh!
The home despot web site, though, is good. Categories, a search engine, lots of overlap—I was able to find what I wanted quickly and easily. Now, why don't they have manuals?
...
Today I'm feeling more relaxed, but I'm still in the middle of a panic attack. We (my and my med advisor) decided to ride this out a bit, and see if it improves on its own, but I'm wondering if that is a good idea, really. I'm totally unable to concentrate. And since lately these have almost only been happening while I'm at work, well...
Before I started with the panic attack this morning, my belly was very upset, as if to say, VJ, you may think you're the picture of serenity, but actually... NOT! When is all of this going to end?
I was able to finally leave the house and get on the bike. This morning was the best ride yet. The vast, vast majority of it was done in speed 3, the hardest speed, and it felt great. It felt easy, even. I don't think I saw the speedometer drop beneath 10 mph unless I was stopped at a light or a stopsign. It was just tremendously pleasurable to be riding this morning. Maybe this is the practice thing that I've heard so much about it?
My coworkers are so sweet—they bought me a bottle of pink nailpolish. Which perfectly matches the bike! I tend to like loud, dark colors for nail polish, but I have to admit that I really like this alot. I was planning to take a picture of it, you know, fingernails on bicycle, but I had to find the camera. I think the cats didn't want any more pictures taken of them, or perhaps the dog was jealous—all I know is that the camera had been on the table, and now, it was nowhere to be seen.
So I found the camera. It was about halfway under the couch. It had to be the dog.
So I got it out, and put it on the couch, with my other stuff for work. Left the room for a few minutes. And once I had gotten dressed and was packing my satchel, I realized that the camera was gone again. This time, I had some momentum, and I couldn't let myself fall into another game of let's find where the camera is now!. So there it stands. My documentation has been twarted. Again.
June 23, 2005
Poor Zoe!
I just have to hold on. Today, and tomorrow, and then it's the weekend.
I'm relieved, really, to have an appointment today with my meds consultant. Exercise seems to be a good stress-release, but only for about as long as I'm doing it. The fact that I'm having these rolling panic attacks, well, I'm hoping something can be done, short of me jumping into the Willamette. After all, the Willamette is filthy.
I decided today to do an experient. I scooted to work, and I timed it. I came in early today, so I was battling less traffic. 14 minutes to get to the garage, and parked. 6 minutes to walk to work. So, 20 minutes. Within 30 seconds of how long it takes me to bike to work.
Scooting is fun, heavens knows, but bicycling is exercise and fun and (the way I do it, it's) silly. I'm pretty sure it's faster than taking the bus, too, though on the bus I get to read or knit.
...
Last night we had some excitement. We were watching TV, us and the dog and the three cats, all piled on the couch, and I heard something rattle on the front porch. We had our windows open, and there are lots of dead leaves on the porch that I need to get rid of. I'm looking out the window, thinking, is it a rat? is it a cat? And suddenly our neighbors' pitbull's head pops up in the window.
Zoe, said pitbull, is full-grown, but tiny, about the size of a Jack Russell, except built like a football player. She is just a wiggling happy pile of love, and she's so homely that she's cute, and she seems to adore us, because she's over in our yard all the time. It worries me that Zoe's owner is so relaxed about her being loose. We live on a fairly busy street, in a neighborhood where loose pitbulls are usually something you want to stay away from. And, we do have neighbors who have an equally lax view of keeping their dogs contained, and their dogs are mean!
So Sweetie, who has shoes on, goes to take Zoe back home, as we always do. I'm like, honey, you're recovering don't do that!, because he'll spend the next half-hour trying to get back to normal breathing, but he's out the door before I can stop him. And all of the sudden, I hear the sounds of a dog fight. Oh, good.
I run outside, and sure enough, a loose dog that was being walked, twice or three times Zoe's size, is attacking her. There's still no sign of Zoe's person, though the guys with the bigger dog manage to pull him off, and Sweetie picks up Zoe and takes her to the house. Zoe's person is all, gosh, thank you, and I'm thinking to myself, you've got to contain your dog.
Poor Zoe!
June 22, 2005
Motivation
It is in the recognition of the genuine condition of our lives that we gain the strength to act and our motivation for change.
—Simone de Beauvoir
one step in the right direction
Allegro at lunch was just the ticket. Hard enough to be hard, jovial enough to be social. I loves my allegro.
And then my instructor informed me that our 8 sessions are up, and that she thought I had made very good progress, visible results, and she hoped I had met my goals. Which made me think—what goals? I started the year with goals, but I feel very far away from them now.
Anyways, now that almost half the year is gone, I need to revisit what I wanted to do then, and see if I still want to do it—and then figure out how.
After that, I did some slow heavy lifts, chinups, benchpress, super-pullover. It felt really good. And then I went down and did 5 minutes in the elliptical machine, which was good and bad. Good, because I feel like I'm really working out, and bad because I was wearing my little pilates shoes, which are just not designed to be stood in, and they're so small that my feet, my giant feet, were slipping through the foot loops.
I would have done more, but, work waited. I got a sandwich on the corner and headed back to the salt mine.
...
By the end of the day, I finally felt like I had a handle on things. One of my projects, one I've felt very guilty about, got given away. I chatted with my coworkers, and found a revolutionary dog cafépress shop.
Waiting for the bus, I had my ipod on, and was thinking my new obsessive thought: how I really couldn't wait to buy the new yarn to knit an ipod sock. Really, this has taken up all the free space in my brain. Light pink, maybe with a black and white stripe, and then a black eyelash—doesn't that sound nice? Or maybe a brown with pink?
Anyhow. A woman stood next me, listening to her ipod, and her ipod, wait for it! Wait for it! Her ipod was encased in a handknit sock. Dude! So I asked her about it, and to my huge surprise, she wouldn't stop talking about it. I see my bus pulling up, and she's still telling me about how it could be tighter, and how she'd like different colors, etc. It was totally cool.
bzzzzz (the sound of tension)
I'm gonna to try to keep this short, as the day is full of stuff, and I'm in the midst of a mild panic attack. Sigh.
I am a bit freaked out about the amount of work at work. And the fact that we are really overbudget. In the shower, my free floating anxiety began to extend to fitness. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I'm a fraud. Here, I write this blog, theoretically about fitness, and here I am, blowing off mat pilates, walking erratically, never going to the gym...
I had to sit myself down and have a stern talk. Self: you're in the middle of a big pile of stress. Now is not the time to freak out about fitness. And it's not like you're doing nothing, you're just not doing as much as you have in the past. Is that such a bad thing? And really, I think—fitness is the scapegoat. Not the issue.
...
I rode the bike home last night. It was not as beatic as it was last time—it felt like work, some of the way.And okay, some of the way. I did stop, but only to take a picture! It will all get better. Practice, practice.
It only took me 23 minutes to get home (!), compared to 45 on the other bike. But since I had left work late, I was officially running late. I had a snack and tried to get ready to go to mat pilates, but it felt like a thousand and one things were holding me back. Like, feeling exhausted. My poor sweetie has been having almost constant coughing fits at night, and while I do manage to sleep through a lot of them, I don't sleep that great.
So I didn't go.
...
The highlight of this morning was vacuuming. I vacuumed the living room again. It looks great. This is frightening. This is not like me.
In my own defense, I wanted to pick up as much of the cat hair and dust as I could, as Sweetie is staying home today, trying to rest and recover from this awful asthma attack. Last night he managed to sleep hard for about 4 or 5 hours, with no coughing fits.
I also spent about a half hour combing Nigella. She wasn't very happy about it, and part of my calf is swollen from where she laid in her claws. But she's shedding her undercoat at a furious clip, and so I was able to collect a kitten-sized ball of fur all clumped together. Afterwards, I felt like I needed to be combed, and I had that horrible sensation of hair sticking to my face (ououough!)
The lowlight of the morning was losing my wallet. I was already late for work, and stressed about everything possible. The morning's migas were really hanging heavy in my belly. I went to put my wallet in my pocket so I could show my bus pass to the bus driver, and—no wallet.
I look in my purse. No wallet. I look in the usual places, the bookshelf in the hallway, the kitchen counter, the back bar, the dining room table. No wallet. Migas demand a quick exit. I think, maybe it's here in the bathroom. No. Maybe it's in the pocket of the dress I wore yesterday. No.
And then, I can see it in my mind's eye. I have a bad habit of leaving it on my desk. No doubt, it's on top of a pile of papers, in plain sight. I wonder if it's still there. That was a stupid thing to do, Vicki. Sheesh.
I make peace with the idea, and I ask Sweetie if I can borrow a little cash. I decide to take apart my purse one more time before I leave. I check each of the pockets. No wallet. I pull out my clear knitting bag, filled with the silver scarf and yarn.
When did you last get out your wallet?, Sweetie asks. I think about it. There was the coffee shop. Umm, and looking at the gas receipts for the scooter (looks like 55mpg right now), and upcoming appointments. Damn, I can just see that wallet sitting on the desk.
And then I see a black thing in my knitting bag in amongst all that silver. Oh my g-d! It's my wallet. Safe and sound.
Even though it's two hours later, obviously my stomach and my nervous system haven't gotten the message yet.
June 21, 2005
a lot of transportation
So. To my eternal relief, my sweetie went to the Urgent Care when he got off work yesterday. By the time I scooted over, he was out, for all intensive purposes looking and sounding worse than he had. Talking causes coughing fits, a walk of 500 ft causes wheezing. My poor baby.
He dropped off a prescription at the pharmacy, and then we went off to dinner at the original Pho Van. This was my third time in as many weeks, and we had another spectacular meal. Then, back to pick up the prescription. And then, over to Bike Gallery to pick up the townie.
I definitely had the better end of the deal, riding the scooter. It was a lovely warm night, perfect for a scooter ride. It was beautiful to be outside.
We picked up the townie, which is gorgeous. It now has chrome-looking silver fenders, chrome bullet lights, a back rack, a bell, and a computer. Again, people stopped me to compliment me on the bike. Incredible. We loaded it in the back of Sweetie's truck, and just as we were about to take off, I saw a tandem come down the street. It had a woven reed basket, decorated with plastic flowers and mardigras beads, 50 skadillion horns, and the couple riding it were wearing matching Lif3 is G00d tandem t's.
...
My living room looks so good vacuumed. Oh my gosh! I felt so insanely proud of it. In fact, when we walked into the house, I felt like the living room glowed. It was all I could do this morning not to vacuum again!
Morning is the time for existential crises. What will I wear? Why do I have so many clothes, and nothing to wear? Scooter, or bicycle? I need to take the scooter in for its 1000K checkup, but I bet they'll want to keep it overnight, which will make me sad. It would be so cool to ride the new improved bicycle, but I need to really kick it on the way home to make it in time to change clothes and jump on the scoot for pilates.
I decided in the end to bicycle in, which was great. I had collected a bunch of roses, stemmed wrapped in a wet paper towel, and a vase with stones, which I wedged into the basket next to my purse. All good so far. Until I'm riding, and the roses are trying to commit suicide. Some actually do hit the road. This isn't good.
Meanwhile, I am loving the computer. The last bike also had a computer, which I couldn't figure out how to use. It was really frustrating, and I kept thinking that I should sit down with it and the manual and figure it out. I was kinda expecting the same from this computer, but, ha ha ha, the computer is idiot-proof. I love it! Another proof for the superiority of the Bike Gallery!
There, without me doing anything, is the miles per hour. And the trip odometer. Press the button, and there's the time. Press it again, and there's the timer, which started without me doing anything, when the ride started!! Press it again, and there's the odometer odometer.
So, according to the bike, I made it to work in 20:30, 3.1 miles. Wuhoo! I love data! I probably lost one rose, maybe two, but it's surprising how good the rest of them look.
June 20, 2005
how not to vacuum
I was having a Brini Maxwell moment this morning before going to work. I had showered, I was dressed, and now I just needed to pick up the living room and vacuum.
Lest you think that I have lost my tiny mind, I did have a reason. I do believe carpets should be vacuumed once a year. No, wrong! My sweetie's asthma has been really awful over the weekend, and last night he spent most of the night sitting up in bed, trying to breathe.
We do have three indoor cats, who we thought would be entertaining and loving, but in fact only exist to shed hair and stink up the house. Oh, and then there's the dog.
Anyways, I hoped that perhaps vacuuming would make it easier for my sweetie to breathe once he got home this evening. And I've drank the Dyson kool-aid—I love the Dyson, I love the canister that fills with cat-hair, over and over again! It makes me feel like I'm really accomplishing something. That, and the carpet is actually a shade lighter afterwards.
So I begin vacuuming, and all three cats and one dog run a ferocious clip up the stairs. I vacuum the carpet, the cat tree, under the stationary bike, over the couch. I'm really getting into it, and the dog is peeking between the railing of the stairs, trying to see when it's safe for him to come back downstairs.
And that's when it happened. In a Brini Maxwell moment, I was wearing my long pink scarf, and I had forgotten entirely about it. Until I managed to vacuum up one of the ends. Not that Brini would ever vacuum up her own scarf while it was on her neck!
perfect bikes and goofy storms
Yesterday, I rode the townie a couple miles over to the Hollywood Bike Gallery to have all of its new stuff put on it. I had ordered black plastic fenders, a back rack, a bell, lights—in short, everything save the "Hawaii" accessories, which are pretty damn cool.
I took Alameda Street, which meant I had to climb that awful hill between 19th & 22nd, and I admit, I walked the bike up. Someday... Otherwise, the ride was easy, and so much fun. I keep waiting for bicycling to become a chore.
The roads were strangely quiet. It was 3ish, the sun was out, but I barely saw any cars, bikes or pedestrians. Was there some sort of alert that everyone must stay inside? It was spooky. Course, it was awful warm, and it did seem like the sun was set on broil.
But then I arrived at the Bike Gallery, and I saw that everyone was in there. So I brought my goofy pink bike inside and went to the service area. I stood there for a little bit, while various guys scurried around. Every female employee in the shop complimented the bike and said that the flowers on the basket were beautiful and a nice touch. Gosh, you guys!
I left the bike there, and caught the bus home almost immediately. I barely got any knitting done at all! The second bus ride was a quintessential bus experience: the guy in front of me smelled intensely bad (a recent bender, and no contact with water for either him or his clothes), and the teenagers sitting across from me who had the opposite problem. They had obviously changed clothes since they left the house, and were displaying hickies on their breasts, and thongs, and all manner of behavior that made me feel like a prude and like I am so middle-aged! Well, I guess I am so middle-aged!
...
I came home and we watched X: the Unheard Music. I love X, and I love that movie, and it cracks me up to see how Exene seems so messed up in some concert footage, and so lucid in others. We both grooved on Billy Zoom's guitar. Damn. Nice.
To top off the evening, we had an amazing storm, maybe even a perfect storm. No, probably not a perfect storm, but an incredible storm all the same. As I mentioned in the last post, it really was wild. A number of my neighbors and I ended up outside, watching the rainbows, the clouds and ever-changing sky. Incredible!
I took some pictures, and there are some others on flickr as well.
June 19, 2005
Gay day
Gay Day finally came. The sky was teasingly grey but everyone knew it never rained on the Gay Pride March... Fifty thousand homosexuals flaunted it that day, each having gone through their own personal shit and wild struggles to be proud. Even though they waved brilliant banners of soft colors and balloons and danced in the streets to samba music, gays are a very, very tough people... Once a year they got cheered, just for being gay. These few hours of approval brought out the dignity and the beauty in each marching queer.
- Sarah Schulman, Girls, Visions and Everything
Today was the day of the Pride Parade here in Portland. It's huge, the second or third largest parade in Portland, and always a good time. Sweetie and I got breakfast downtown, then staked out a spot with our scooters on the route.
My sweetie got me a set of mardigras beads that had a giant "Ride to Live, Live to Ride" on it. Too goofy and cool! We stood or sat on our scooters, and I knit on my scooter scarf, the silver fuzzy thing.
First up was the anti-homosexual Christians, walking down the middle of the street, shouting provocations at anyone who looked at them. It occurred to me that if pro-peace protesters tried to proceed a pro-war march, that the cops would be out with nightsticks and plastic bullets and ATVs. I've come close to being decked for being a bystander by cops, and I've seen them provoke the crowd. Not pretty.
And then the parade started. Hurrah! Dykes on bikes (including one scooter!), politicians, high-tech employees, people riding in convertibles, drag queens, drag kings, people on quadracycles, choirs, church groups, people on trucks, union members, people on bicycles, people dancing, etc. Everyone seeming so very happy, and me, I'm so happy too.
On one side of me was a young latino couple with a small child. The child really wasn't sure of what to make of this, but the couple were having a great time. On the other side of us was a man with a camera, and he and I would tag team. Some people would bee-line right to me (or the small child) with stickers, candy, info, frisbees; others would bee-line to the man with the camera, so we did a lot of trading. Someone from the sheriff's office gave me a junior deputy sheriff star sticker!
For the longest time, I recognized no one. I mean, politicians would go by, and I would recognize them, but that doesn't really count. Then finally, I recognized Roey Thorpe, who I used to know in Ann Arbor. Not that, I think, she recognized me.
And then, suddenly, the Bike Gallery folks rode by, many on the cool Electra cruisers. Sweetie spotted them first, saying, hey, look, there's a Rat Fink! And then, there was the young woman who had been so cool, and so patient, and so totally great, and had sold me the pink townie! I yelled out her name, she looked back, and there was this look of joy and total recognition. Tee hee hee! Yay!
After the parade, we were, not surprisingly, hungry. So we scooted to a new mexican place on Interstate called Michoacan. The place that was there before was a dump, and this is even more so, but strangely charming. Lots of books everywhere, in spanish and english. Videos in spanish. The soccer game, Brazil trouncing Mexico. Very very primative paintings of the usual mexican restaurant themes.
They sat us down immediately and brought chips and salsa. The chips appeared to be recently fried, and homemade, from fresh homemade tortillas. The salsa I was less crazy about, essentially tomato juice with big chunks of onion and peppers and cilantro. We ordered, and our meals, which came very quickly, came with fresh homemade tortillas, delicious refried beans and spanish rice. The tortillas were so good that I could have easily eaten them just with salt. Oh, but can you imagine a little butter and salt?
I quickly saw that we ordered the wrong thing. A whole fried fish was the most gorgeous thing imaginable, and cheap. The beef soup looked substantial and tantilizing. The shrimp cocktail, quite yummy.
Anyways, my omelet de carne asada was enough food for three, so I have plenty for migas tomorrow morning!
This evening has been wild. At first, the sky was green. Tornado sky. Then it was yellow. I had never seen the sky be yellow. Then orange. Huh? Then pink. And now a deep cornflower blue. It's 9:15 as I write this, so it won't be dark for another half hour.
June 17, 2005
What have I done to my pilates instructor??
For some reason, my evening mat pilates instructor wants to kill me. She got this gleam in her eye when I asked her if this was the beginning of a new session, and she said "yes" with zeal. As usual, she's trying to scare off the new folks. Muscle girl, one of the regulars who sometimes works out near me, kept shooting me this look like "She's lost it, man," as we'd struggle through the floor exercises. The irish woman who flawlessly does every move was struggling. Jill simply looked like she was about to die. I wanted to die.
By the time I went to bed, I was aching, and this morning, well, I don't think there's a single part of me, with the momentary exception of my head, that isn't aching.
...
Today, we take a now-ex-coworker out to lunch. That will be nice. And then I see the chiropractor, and my weekend begins. I am so ready. It has been such a harsh week.
June 16, 2005
forward and back
Instead of spending the day beating my head against the wall, as I have been for the last couple weeks, I spent the morning going through my email, and identifying projects and deadlines. I got through 3 or 4 months of email, and identified 12 projects, three of them with deadlines, and two of them with active naggers.
Unfortunately, two of the three deadline projects are due next week, which is all a little too exciting. But I feel a little more able to cope. And I went through and identified steps in the most important of the two deadline projects.
I am only on chapter two of Getting Things Done. As usual, the thing about reading 10 books at a time is that you really don't make a lot of progress in any of them.
...
I decided, since I'm a walker, and walking is what I do, that I ought to actually do some walking. How crazy is that? I decided that I would walk to the Grand Central on Hawthorne from work for lunch. So I did. It took me a half hour, so, I ended up burning a little more than an hours lunch, but it was very pleasant, and I got to have this week's favorite sandwich, the Bistro Ham. Yum.
Then, I biked home from work for the first time in I don't know how long. It went really well! It took me 35 minutes, so ten minutes longer than going to work, and I did end up getting off the bike once, but only once. Pretty damn cool! Not that I'm ready to do Providence Bridge Pedal, but then, that's two months off. I am so very pleased.
...
This morning, I was hoping to walk into work, but as has been lately the case, I dozed on the couch sitting straight up this morning. Pathetic. I don't even remember sweetie leaving. Yikes. I did eventually get my act together, showering, popping the world's largest zit (right on my chin, ugh), and making chilaquiles, before scooting in.
I woke up during a super-disturbing dream. I had some fatal disease and I was going to die soon. Oh, and I was contagious. Cool huh? There was something about the scooter (it was fine), and then at one point I was in the bathroom putting some miracle hair remover on my chin and mustache, while my father stood outside, yelling at me for taking so long. (Dad never yelled at me in real life) Why I was removing the hair on my chin and mustache when I was about to die, I don't know (and I feel like I've made my peace with my hairy southern-european face, so, umm, huh?). Oh, and outside, the snow was four and a half feet deep!
Outside of the scooter and my pathetic super-slow jock-like activities, things have been feeling fairly futile lately. Will I manage to make anyone happy at work, nonetheless myself? Will I ever get the yard into shape—like Sisyphus, knowing that once I get it into shape, it will just rain and I'll be back at the beginning? Etc. And even jockwise, will I ever get faster, stronger, fitter? It's all a bit overwhelming.
Beginning
The beginning is half of every action.
—Greek Proverb
(from Getting Things Done)
Chilaquiles
This is a fast easy breakfast, and an excellent way to use up stale tortillas or leftover tacos. In fact, if you live near a tacqueria that specializes in quisados (stews), that's the best of all, because the tortilla will have absorbed all the lovely juice.
2 eggs
leftover soft taco on corn tortilla OR stale corn tortillas
a smidge of mexican or cheddar or jack cheese
leftover vegetables or beans
mexican sauce or salsa
- Take whatever leftovers you have, and chop them into smallish (1/2" square) pieces. Stale tortilla can be easily crushed or broken by hand or by molcajete y tejolote. Slice or crumb cheese if you use it.
- Get out a smallish fry pan, put it over low heat, and crack two eggs into it. Scramble them with a chopstick or something. It doesn't matter if you have chunks of yolk and chunks of white. Add your chopped leftovers and stir to combine. Sprinkle cheese on top. Cover.
- Let everything heat through, the egg set, and the cheese melt. Then, take off the heat and plate. Serve with mexican sauces like crema, ranchero, tomatillo sauce, or fresh salsa.
June 15, 2005
from thought to action
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
(from Getting Things Done)
Stress relief
Pilates was good last night. It was the first mat class I've made it two in two weeks, so it was hard. A class like that, where my mind is occupied and my body is complaining, is such a release when I'm stressed, and I feel like I'm hitting new highs in stress.
Afterwards, I went to the store to try to find some protein. I feel flummoxed by the new diet, simple as it is, and the whole question—how will I ever get enough protein, and not cause my arteries to completely clog?—hasn't been far from my mind. When I'm not thinking about work, or home.
I spent about 45 minutes reading labels. I was on the scooter and it was raining, so I needed to be thoughtful about what I bought. $55 later, I had one full canvas bag of coffee, fizzy water, and protein.
This morning I kept falling asleep on the couch. I finally got myself vertical and began making my monster breakfast: breakfast sausage with a black bean omellette. It was good but it seemed like so much food.
Oh, and my dog is a klepto. I put an apple and an orange on the couch with my gym clothes, the magazines for the gym, my ipod, etc. I came back in the room, and everything was just as it was, except the orange. No orange. Apple still there, not moved. Echo looked at me with those big liquid brown eyes, oh lovey, lovey, lovey. I ordered him off the couch, he looked offended, and I saw where he had tucked the orange under the cushion. What an adorable dog!
I was running severely late, but I decided I needed to ride the bike in. It was a good idea too. I can think about all the things that bother me, but I can't really be anxious because, hey, I'm riding a pink bike. I actually got a compliment (on the bike) from a serious cyclist. Wow!
I got the bike down in the garage and was locking it up when one of the garage guys said, hey, that's the most popular bike down here. Really?, I asked. Yes, because it's so pretty, he said. Cool!
I ordered black fenders, a black rack, lights, and a bell, which hopefully will be in tonight. If they have a decent little bike computer, I'll get that too. Fancy that, having a bike that I could figure out walking distances with, that I'd actually want to ride?!
June 14, 2005
how to live
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming: "Yeah Baby! What a Ride!"
—from the Womens Cycling Discussion Forums
Ugh!
I got together last night with Hollie, who has a new candy-apple-red scooter. We drove all over East County, or BFE as she refers to it. It was great fun.
Today, I feel like crap. Hollie asked me to take her to my favorite tacqueria, so I did. We got some tacos and horchata, and as usual, it was really really tasty. Now, I'm really, really hoping she didn't eat something off at the tacqueria. I'm trying to convince myself that my stomach upset is due to work stress. And home stress. And animal stress.
Nigella, the photogenic cat, has been a terror lately. I keep hearing these crashing sounds upstairs, or downstairs, so I will gravitate to the sound, and find Nigella sitting there, as if she expected me. This morning, I got out of the bathroom to find her on top of the tv cabinet—the one surface we thought the cats couldn't get up to. She was, of course, behind an irreplaceable statuette that sweetie had picked up in Austin that is very fragile, and was eating lavender, which should mean I'll have some cat puke to clean up when I get home. Unless the dog gets to it first. Ugh.
June 13, 2005
Decoration
We did, however, have a really good time. We went out to breakfast on the scooters, then on errands, all over town. I got soft silver eyelashy yarn to make into a scooter riding scarf, and learned my new favorite yarn store is getting a tavern license this week. Woo hoo, knitting and beer drinking, what could be better? And, I got some fake flowers to add to my bike basket.
So, I put stickers and devil ducks on the scooter (!!!!), and then I sat down with some floral wire, and added the fake flowers (orchids and roses) to the front of the bike basket. I had big plans of documenting the bike basket, as well as one side of scooter with the flaming rose sticker, but I forgot the camera this morning.
It's probably as well. I was (shock!) running behind, but I still decided to clip some flowers to bring into work. So, I grabbed a milk bottle, washed it out, put some of my new green pebbles in the bottom, and ran out with the clipper. A few minutes later, I had four mirandy buds, a bloom from my Mt. Hood, and some flowering tobacco (nicotiana mutablis), ready to go.
Because it's Monday (joy!), I also had my coffee cup, water bottle and water glass, and I also had my non-biking clothes. In otherwords, I had a pile of stuff. As usual.
So I'm wearing my backpack, and I have my purse and the fresh flowers in milk bottle in the basket. I only had the water about half way full, because I thought that should give enough room for splashing. Ha ha ha! By the time I got halfway to work, the back of my purse was soaked.
It was a great ride though. I decided to go along the Eastbank Esplanade because of the Rose Festival, and it was interesting and enjoyable to watch the Coast Guard boats with their machine guns aimed in my general direction. I usually avoid the Esplanade on a bike because of the ups and downs of it, which generally for me translates into walking the bike and panting.
I did end up having to walk the bike up one hill, but only because I shifted down instead of up or vice versa. But otherwise, the ride in was fun. And there's nothing like riding what looks like a big pink childrens bike for attracting some attention.
cycling with the girls
There's something about getting grimy and sweaty with the gals. You feel like you're breaking the rules. You're not made of sugar and spice and everything nice. You're not someone's girlfriend and you're not someone's mother. For that moment, at least, all you have to be is a cyclist.
—Kimberly Grob
June 11, 2005
Helvetia Half
I had this recurring fantasy of just doing the Helvetia Half. I really wanted to. But, you know, how crazy is that? I'm scheduled for a 6-miler this weekend, and they did actually have a 10K, but it's entirely flat and what fun is that? So, I worked the PFit aid/cheer station.
My shift started at 7:15, so I planned to leave the house at about 6 on the scooter so I could take backroads. Ha! My usual inertia keep me from actually starting-starting until about 6:45. So, I took the freeway.
This was the first time I took the scooter on the freeway, including on the awesome windy Fremont Bridge. It did fine. I never got anywhere near the top end on it.
So I got there, amazingly, by 7, so once I changed out of my jeans and jacket and got ready to get to work, it was easily 7:15. Our crew was several of the longstanding coaches, me and two other ACs, and a bunch of high school kids.
We did the usual. Set up tables, mixed powerade, poured into thousands of little cups, chalked the street. Rowan changed into a rented bunny outfit.
Then the race began, and for a half-hour, it was solid athletes, a mass of people. I began shouting, powerade, get your powerade, fresh, cold powerade, it's red, it's delicious, you want it, get your powerade here. Within minutes, it was clear that I hadn't done this sort of shouting in awhile, as it got painful, but I continued as tears streamed down my face.
It was great to see, and cheer on folks I know. Cory thanked me before I recognized him, and I saw Mela across the crowd. My chiropractor was walking it too. And, I saw lots of folks from PFit that I don't know all that well, that I just see from week to week. Made me happy.
I mentioned to Susie about the Gorge Marathon experience, and she said that the race director had been written up in Trail Runner as one of the worse race directors in the country! Wow!
It was nice cheering folks on as they looped back by us to return to the stadium and the finish. I spotted Christina (she's fast), and she seemed thrilled that I recognized her. My allegro trainer was also running, and she came up and tackled me (I didn't even see her coming).
It was really interesting watching people come in. I could really identify with those who looked totally spent at mile 12—that was me last year at Helvetia.
The weather was better this year. Overcast, cool, and sprinkly. The temperature kept shifting, but it seemed comfortable enough if you weren't standing around doused with powerade.
...
I had this crazy thought while I was standing there. Yeah, I thought, I gotta get faster. I gotta get faster. I gotta quit being such a slacker and being so slow.
Of course, once I started thinking about it, what the hell am I thinking? Yeah, I could and should do speed training. But it's not like I go slow and I have a choice. I go about as fast as I can go. Yes, there are things I could do to go faster, like losing weight and speed training. Sigh.
...
I had planned on only working the early shift, but then I decided to just stay put and cheer folks on from the aid station. It was nice. I really felt a part of PFit, and it felt good. I have weeks where I just kinda feel disconnected, but not today.
This too shall pass
THIS TOO SHALL PASS. If you're feeling good, roll with it but refrain from letting exuberance carry you over that red line. THIS TOO SHALL PASS. If you're feeling bad, hang in there, keep up the relentless forward progression, and be patient. THIS TOO SHALL PASS.
—from Nancy Toby
June 10, 2005
Huh?
I am still sore. What is with that?
...
Last night, I went to the naturopath. My sports chiro had suggested that I see her about jumpstarting my weight loss process. So in preparing for my appointment, I thought about my diet, and exercise.
Diet wise, I suppose I would lose more weight if I actually did diet. Exercise wise, I'm not working out as much as I was earlier this spring. Right now, it comes down to three pilates sessions, 45 minutes each, and two significant walks, with some walk or bike commuting. I seem to have lost the drive to work out before work, or at lunch. Oh well, I'm still getting lots of exercise, and there is no need for me to get obsessive about it.
I like her. She's down to earth, and realistic. So after chatting a while, she made these suggestions:
- Breakfast: instead of my favorite hippie-made organic colon-blow cereal, I should get 50% of my protein (so, about 30-35 grams)
- Morning snack: nuts or fruit
- Lunch: veggies and 25% protein
- Afternoon snack: nuts or fruit
- Dinner: veggies and 25% protein
- Evening snack: nuts or fruit
So. So far, so good.
I got out of the appointment late, which meant I was late for pilates, and you know, I should have just gone. But I was tired, and I was hungry, and I wasn't wearing pilates clothes, so I headed home. I heard from Jill today that the class was cancelled, so it all came out in the wash.
...
This morning, I was ready for a good walk to work. Then I remembered that I needed to eat protein. Poop. So, I made myself some turkey sausage and an egg (because all we had was one egg). It was quite yummy, and I had this feeling of righteousness and fullness. Cool!
Today I decided the bike had to get out of the kitchen. And so it was. The ride in was just a blast. I tucked the pink devilduckie under the handle of the bike basket, and put my mexican oilcloth purse with flowers in the basket. I put on a pink scarf over my insanely floral dress. Great!
And it was a beautiful morning for a ride. Cool, cloudy.
I got across the Steel Pedestrian Bridge, and saw that the waterfront bike path was closed, due to Rose Festival and the Navy ships being docked here. So I followed the detours, or at least tried to, but it wasn't very clearly marked. So I ended up on the sidewalk along Front Ave.
And, I made it in record time. 23 minutes. That's 7 minutes faster than last time. What the ?? That damn bike is so much fun to ride...
June 9, 2005
I loves a parade
Well, after all my complaining, my contortionist called me and rescheduled, and gave me quite the massage. Her massages are so hard, I feel like it's a feat that I remain laying on the table. At one point she started working on my hip flexors and I just had to say, I can't take it. I can't breathe through this, you have to lighten up.
Perhaps, not surprisingly, I ache more today than the day after the marathon! Allegro might have something to do with it too. Maybe.
...
There has been a thread on the local scooter list about cheap places to park. This morning, I parked for $2. For Portland, for a scooter, that's pretty incredibly cheap. If I park in my building, it's $7.75. I'm psyched.
I hate to actually pay for monthly parking, but on the other hand, it's really tempting. But if I did that, would I walk and bike less than I do now? Hard to say.
...
The Rose Festival is going on here, right now, which makes approaching the waterfront a giant pain in the butt. The intown portion of my commute is right on the waterfront, so there is absolutely no incentive for me to commute under my own power right now.
Though. Today is the first day of Pedalpalooza, which is this celebration of the quirky, creative bike culture here. There's a parade tonight! Damn, what a good excuse to miss pilates!
Because the townie is in the kitchen (still. Let's not go there), and because we have a cat that loves buckets and bags and boxes, we thought it might be fun to, umm, put Nigella in the bike basket. Was it fun? Oh yeah!
June 8, 2005
discovery
You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experence of essential loneliness; for nobody can discover the world for anyone else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and bond, and we cease to be alone.
— Wendell Berry (from July 2005 Runners World)
times and disappointment
Well, I just checked the Gorge Marathon site to see if results were posted, and they were.
Here are the stats. There were 62 marathoners and 125 half-marathoners that finished. I finished last (as I knew), coming in at 8:48:01.0, with a 20:09/M pace.
At Portland, I came in at 8:56:49, 20:28 pace, so I did PR. Dude, I did this monster marathon, and I PRed. Not by much, but hey! A PR is a PR.
So, I obviously have Stockholm Syndrome, because I really want to go back and do this marathon again (just, umm, not this weekend). And I had said as much to sweetie, and was scheming on who I could pull in on this, and then I read this:
Thank you participants, sponsors and volunteers for eight unbelievable years. We are not planning on returning in 2006
Man! Man!! Sheesh!
Go check out Lynne!
If you wanna read something really cool, check out Lynne's vignettes from the super incredible Michigan Coast to Coast Adventure Race. She really rocks!
flake attractor
I wonder what it is about me, but I really seem to attract flakes. My contortionist/masseuse flaked on me last night. I left work early. This stuff drives me nuts.
But it gave me the opportunity to stop into my less-flakey, but still, regular chiropractor, who needed to reschedule that appointment.
At least I don't see the dentist til July, and hopefully they've made a note in my chart not to reschedule any of my appointments.
...
My beautiful pink bicycle is in the kitchen. We brought it in before the HR trip, and it just hasn't made it back outside.
The shed is still empty. It has a locking knob/handle, but a person could climb in through a window and unlock the door. Sigh. I wish I didn't have to be so paranoid, but things walk on their own in my neighborhood.
My neighbor was telling me on Friday that the birdbath in his backyard was stolen. How the hell do you fence a birdbath? It's just crazy. He's had horrible luck though—the fountain in his front yard was stolen earlier this spring, and through a strange "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon" grapevine, he was able to find the woman who bought it from the guy who stole it. I wouldn't think that his fountain would be fenceable—it's big and heavy. But obviously, there is a lot I don't know.
Anyways, hopefully tonight we'll buy the crap to secure the damn thing, and then we can start putting things in.
...
We, of course, could have secured the shed last night. But we were both bushed, so we grabbed burritos and then hung out with the animals. It was lovely. So nice to have a quiet, slow evening at home.
...
Today will mark my return to exercise. Allegro. Wuhoo!
preparation
We can never really be prepared for that which is totally new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs sub-ordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
—Eric Hoffer
(from Getting Things Done)
Taking one day at a time
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.
—Ashleigh Brilliant
(from Getting Things Done)
June 7, 2005
The meme of three
This meme courtesy of Liz.
3 names I go by:
- Vicki Jean
- VJ
- Bunny
3 screen names I've had:
(I've never instant messaged.)
3 physical things I like about myself:
(I found this kinda hard. I'm liking my hair as it gets longer, I like the fact that I have cheekbones, but otherwise, I feel like I'm pretty noncommital about my physical body. There are a couple things I really dislike, and most things are just there. Liking my thighs, though, is brand spanking new)
- my shoulders
- my back
- my thighs
3 parts of my heritage:
- nervousness
- a compulsive need to joke
- being unable to make a long story short
3 things I am wearing right now:
(yikes!)
- Freescale half-marathon t-shirt
- black & white silk scarf
- Here's Tawny! nail polish
3 favorite bands/musical artists:
(I don't really have favorite bands anymore. I have songs I get excited about. How's this — if this artist is mentioned on the cover of a magazine, I'm sure to buy it.)
- Sleater-Kinney
- Aimee Mann
- Barbara Manning
3 favorite songs:
(okay, highlights from the race ipod selections)
- They Might Be Giants: She's an Angel
- MC5: Kick out the Jams
- Graham Parker: The Madness of Love
3 things I want in a relationship:
- good sex
- good conversation
- good laughter
3 physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to me:
- muscles
- bare skin
- the tush
3 favorite hobbies:
- walking
- scootering
- snuggling with dog and/or cats and/or sweetie
3 Things I want to do badly right now:
- figure out what I want to be when I grow up
- figure out a way to make a living and not be so stressed out
- be traveling
3 things that scare me:
- being bored
- being unloveable
- not being able to communicate
3 of my everyday essentials:
- coffee
- water
- movement
3 Careers you have considered or are considering:
- librarian
- mapmaker
- transportation analyst
3 places you want to go on vacation:
- Mexico
- Crater Lake
- British Columbia
3 kids' names you like:
(Ummm, how about animal names? Graeme, Michaela, Pixel).
3 things you want to do before you die:
- more travel
- make more friends
- move more under my own power
3 ways I am stereotypically a boy:
- muscular
- I'm thoroughly a slob
- I love hardware stores
3 ways I am stereotypically a girl:
- I do care what other people think
- I love wearing fabulous, showy clothes
- chocolate, sometimes, is transformative
3 celeb crushes:
(I reserve the right to have new celebrity crushes tomorrow, if not sooner)
- Athanasia Tsoumeleka (2004 Race walking champion)
- Jon Stewart
- Tracey Ullman
- Nigella Lawson
Slacker day
So, it's my first day back at work. It's funny. I didn't really tell many people about marathoning, so I'm not expecting people to ask. But people have just been offering that I'm looking good. Can you imagine? I'm feeling damn good, that's for sure, like the cat that ate the canary.
I feel like such a slacker. No exercise—that's what Higdon said, so that's what I'm doing. I go for a massage this afternoon from my fav contortionist/masseuse. And I am feeling so very excited, so optimistic!
What a difference from last week. Damn. Thursday afternoon I all but had a nervous breakdown and went home and cried for hours. And then my sweetie took the dog to Jill and I started sobbing again. I was seriously a bit nervous about being left alone in the house on Friday.
But I felt better on Friday, and I felt worlds better yet when we got to Hood River. I love HR, and it was the first trip that sweetie and I took together. We stayed at a restored 50s motel (read, cheesy, ironic and cheap) and wondered at how beautiful the gorge was out our window. We were there offseason, so there was snow, and the town was quiet. We checked out all these locals-only sorts of specials. It was great.
And. I can't help but think of this when I think of HR. We were in bed, and suddenly we became aware of this noise, this voice, someone obviously on the other side of the cinderblock wall, shouting f&*#k me over and over again. We both fell into giggles—and then the chanting stopped—which made us embarrassedly laugh even harder.
And then I feel tremendous guilt. What if I ruined, well, I don't know, maybe ruined this person's day or relationship or confidence about sex? And then I think, VJ, you should have such power. Yeah, right!
June 6, 2005
I am a spazz.
I wrote the race report, off and on, Sunday night and Monday morning. And finished at check-out time. Before we left, I frantically checked, several times, to see if the Race Report had loaded. I couldn't find it. I'd panic, etc., etc., never thinking that it would post with the first draft time. Oh, I am such a spazz.
Oh, and I forgot to mention this in the race report. Right before the man in the truck broke my heart and shattered my existence by confessing that he had taken down the aid stations and the mile markers, right before that, I passed—wait for it!—a waste water treatment site! A really old awful looking one. Really stinky!!
I can't believe how good I'm feeling today. No blisters. There was no crisis of faith. I've had no problems walking around. In fact, we checked out of the motel and were walking across the parking lot to the car when I saw the X-Dog guy (who had put on the event). He was like, man, you're walking too good. Are you sure you did the marathon yesterday? We chatted with him for a good ten minutes or so, and he was claiming that I was walking better than he was. (Yeah, right!)
We then drove into HR proper and did some walking around, first to my favorite dog store, then to get lunch at a kickass Italian bakery, then to our favorite used bookstore and junk shop, and then to Full Sail. Joy! We both got glasses of lawnbräu, one of the Session prototypes, and checked out our HR booty.
Here's some pics, if you'd like
While I toll away on the Great American Novel, perhaps you'd like to see some pictures?
Columbia Gorge Marathon 2005
June 5, 2005
Gorge Marathon race report
So. I overate Saturday night (luscious meal, but still), and it seemed I was awake every hour, between peeing and heartburn and just waking up. So, 4:15 came very early.
We checked the weather. Thunderstorms. Oh good.
We drove to The Dalles, no problems, and joined the other 25 or so early-starters, the majority of which were walkers. The wind was fierce. Like really super-fierce.
As expected, there was no real startline. We didn't have chips. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was a Red Lizard club run. Maybe it is.
Anyways, we start. It's blustery, but not raining, just wind-wind-wind. The course has been changed from the one we drove yesterday—instead of going through town, and along the fast food/strip mall corridor, we are going along the river, starting on a bike path.
I'm amazed—some of the folks are not carrying water. Or anything it seems.
I let everyone else go out. My goal is to finish in 9 hours, or to do this at about a 20 minute mile pace. I know about the hill at Rowena, and who knows what's in the trail portion of the route.
As usual, the route goes by all the industrial stuff a city would want left unseen—an abattoir, the waste-water treatment plant, the correctional facility. I go by the animal shelter, which is easily identified by the roar of barking dogs. One lone white cat sits in the window looking out.
This area looks like real high-desert. Except watered. Sage grows into trees here, rather than the stunted little balls you see near Bend.
The first runner from the late-start passes me at 7:47. The vast majority of the runners are men, and friendly. It appears that the marathon field is maybe 50,60 people. And I learn later that the half field is maybe 75.
The roads aren't closed, but the historic highway has surprisingly little traffic. Maybe because it only goes from The Dalles to Mosier, 16 miles.
The first nine miles goes without note. I meet up with my sweetie by Mayer Lake, he refills the tiny camelb@k bladder (I can't wait to get a new camelb@k), we chat and kiss, and he goes his way and I go mine.
Mile ten marks the beginning of the Rowena climb. It starts innocuously, a very very slight grade, and then shifts between steep and not so steep. The views are gorgeous, and I swear to g-d, the climb to the top of Rowena Plateau lasts forever. Forever! (Also known as one and a half miles)
I get to the top, and I am feeling transcendent. It is so incredible that I just climbed this. I got here on my own two feet! Incredible! The river sparkles and everything looks really far down.
Before I really have a chance to get all gooey, 9 cars, expensive European crotch-rocket-style cars come peeling through the curve. It's marked as 15mph, which makes sense as there is no f&*^king shoulder, and there's no f&*^king way they could see me with enough reaction time to brake, and so they come f&*^king inches away from me.
My reaction was to have a fit. I started yelling f&*^k you and flipping off the drivers. Like that did a lot of good.
I round the curve to the Rowena Crest, and there's a portapotty (thank g-d), and a completely unmanned aid station. Wuhoo!
I see a lot of bluebirds, and squirrels, and dogs. I see one cat. I see a doe and her fawn. By and large, it's pretty cool, though it is so very lonely out here. Not that I am lonely, but it's incredible to see so very few people.
It occurs to me: I wonder if Lewis & Clark felt this sort of wonder at the incredible beauty. Or if it was overwhelming and awful because of the sheer climbs?
My feet hurt. I'm hating the pavement, which is invariably the very highest part of the road, or the very lowest part of the road.
I pass two teenagers. One asks if I'm walking to Mosier. I tell him that I'm going to HR, and that I started from the Dalles. He is suitably impressed.
I am surprised, but just about everyone who passes by—bicyclists, motorcyclists, drivers—waves or says hi.
I am so thrilled when I see the sign for Mosier. Downhill, downhill, downhill, and into town. I'm at 18 miles now. At 18.7, there's a portapotty. I can't wait to see that portapotty. I've been thinking about squatting behind a fruit tree for miles now, and if my skort wasn't so damn inconvenient for that, I would have.
I see my sweetie and a townsperson who is hanging out to cheer me on—how cool is that? They are hanging out by, wait for it, an unmanned aid station. And the portapotty. Which has two little girls in it. I think I am going to die. Their father finally shepards them out—he obviously has no clue that this is a portapotty for the marathoners. Why should he know this? Other than aidstations, and mile markers, there are no signs or other indications that this is a race. Hell, the signs are still up from the Mt Hood Cycling Classic, so a person might think there was a bike race.
I pee, I get new fluids, I see my darling—my life is hugely improved. We kiss and he goes off—I'll see him at the finish. I am full of good cheer.
Here at the west end of Mosier, the highway officially ends, and so I climb a hill to meet up with the official highway trail. About halfway up what is turning out to be a pretty steep hill, a truck stops, and the driver asks, "do you need some aid?" Low and behold, he has taken down the next couple aid stations. Worse yet, he has all the milemarkers in the back of his truck. I wave him on, but I'm crestfallen. No milemarkers! oh my g-d, no milemarkers!
I know I have enough fluids, I have gu, I've been pretty good about taking my electrolytes and gu and water so I'm going to be okay, okay physically, but damn it, how dare you take everything down?! At this point, I think, this is my wall. It's early this time, mile 19. Dude, you're breaking my heart!!
I of course say none of this. I say I'm fine, and I move along.
Okay, why does the highway end, and the trail begin? That was my big question (other than, why does the universe hate me?!?!) The answer is, the Mosier Twin Tunnels. The tunnels were designed for Model Ts, and once cars started getting larger, accidents started becoming more frequent, until the tunnels were closed and filled in the fifties.
There is, of course, a hill to get up to the tunnels. Oh joy. And there is still wind. Remember the wind? Still there. But once I get to the tunnels, they are incredible. What a beautiful passage!
At this point, I am guessing at mile markers, going by the old stone milemarkers along the path. I'm somewhere in 21. I'm going to finish, no problem, My body hurts, I'm tired, I want this to be over, but it will be, soon.
And at that point, Christina came up. She was on a bike, identified herself as being with the race, and hung out with me for a mile or two. I didn't realize how hungry I was for human contact, but once she was there, I was so thankful that she was there. She was funny and sweet and thoughtful.
When she took off, I was newly revived. It was time to get to the bathroom—a real bathroom, not a portapotty that might blow over in the wind with you inside it and go cascading down a hill like an awful agony of defeat film clip. Soon enough, I was there! The end of the closed trail! I called my sweetie to tell him I'd see him at the finish sometime soon. A park ranger checked on me, asking all sorts of friendly questions about how I was feeling, how it was going, had I enjoyed the trail?
There is an abandoned aid station, and glory upon glory, they have oranges sectioned in cups. I grab one and keep moving. The oranges are a bit crispy, but they are delicious. So sweet. The pits too. I'm tempted to just chew on them.
And then, down a mercilessly steep trail. They Might Be Giants' She's an Angel playing on the iPod. I just gotta roll on down. I can see the Toll Bridge below, and the finish line, roll on down.
Rather than going directly to the finish line, the course winds into town. Damn you! Curses! I blame England, damn 385 ft or yards or whatever! I dodge holes in the sidewalk and scaffolds and severe ups and downs and tourists. This is pretty damn hard. But then I see the bike path. That leads to the park. And the finish line. Oh my g-d!
I cross this magnificent footbridge that I should have taken a picture of, but I was so anxious to get to the finish that there would be no more pictures. I practically fly across the bridge. I see sweetie waving outside the tent!
Of course, it's not a straight line to the finish. No, you have to walk almost up to the tourist center, then wait for a car to park, then walk through a parking lot, then wait for a car to pass, then sprint across the lawn. At this point, everyone is outside, cheering me on. I'm the last one, significantly the last one.
Christina and my beloved hoist the Finish banner so I can pass underneath, while everyone cheers and applauds and shouts. Someone gets me a chair and a beer, and everyone gathers around and congratulates me. The beer guy keeps my glass full, and I have no idea how much I'm drinking, I just know that this is the best beer I've ever tasted.
I have no idea how much I drank. I was drunk, not surprisingly, when we walked back to the motel. I had my icebath in the jacuzzi tub (how goofy is that?), drinking a session, then my sweetie ordered room service. I didn't think I was hungry, but then I inhaled my BLT and fries.
After that I laid down. I slept a little, and just laid there a lot. It was nice.
So, in the end, I have only a vague idea how I did. I know I finished just short of 9 hours. I don't know if I PRed or not. But I feel so very much better than when I did Portland 300 years ago. And this was a very satisfying race. It was hard. And I did it.
After some extended lying about, we walked over to the pub across the parking lot and got some dinner. I never would have been able to do this after Portland. I was moving slow, but I was moving. We chatted a bit with some fellows who had come down from Ottawa to do the marathon—amazing!
Today. I have a little sunburn on the side of my face. My left knee aches a little. I abraded the skin above my armpits—I think, from the damn backpack. But I'm getting around fine, I look good, I feel pretty darn great. And proud. I really accomplished something!
I did it! Report to follow...
June 4, 2005
day of sloth
...
The start, maybe?
Museum. Of what, I'm not sure.
Views from Rowena Crest
We spent about an hour and a half looking for the start. No kidding. No really, you go look at this map, and then tell me where the start is. We finally stopped in a convenience store and bought a map of The Dalles, and then asked the nice ladies where the hell the start was. They recognized it right off.
The start is right behind a waste-treatment plant. You know how I was complaining about walking by the waste-treatment plant in the 31K? Well, that was one that really didn't smell much. This one smells, and it looks like it's big vats of churning, well, anyways.
The Dalles and Hood River are like two siblings. The Dalles is a larger city, complete with a fully-preserved downtown... that really has no charm at all, in spite of some really interesting turn-of-the-century architecture. Get a smidge out of The Dalles, and it's all trailer parks and giant big box stores and miles of fast food joints.
While Hood River is really just a small town. That works very hard at being cute. It has good food, it has Full Sail beer, it has an atmosphere that encourages windsurfing, biking, running, skiing, you name it. And yes, it even has a Wal-Mart, but the zoning and land-use laws here even made that more approachable.
But I digress. By mile four, we are finally out of The Dalles and onto the Historic Columbia River Highway. The road rolls, but gently so, until you hit about mile 10.5. Then you begin a mile and a half climb which in some spots is fairly steep. At the end of that, you end up at Rowena Crest. Very pretty.
By about mile 18, you're at the little town of Mosier (which, other than the Dalles, and HR, is the only option for buying water or sport drink). And then, abruptly, the Historic Columbia River Highway ends. There's a trail that continues, but nothing that a car can drive. So while my sweetie records landmarks and mileposts, well, that isn't going to work anymore.
Oh, and there's another waste-treatment plant! How do I get so lucky!
So at that point, we trudged back to HR, to the Gorge Marathon Expo! We got to the park where the Expo is taking place, and there's a tent. Which has a table inside, where our packets are. No vendors. Nobody giving anything away. Nobody selling shoes or shirts or gu.
For the half and marathon combined, the volunteer guessed 300. Oh, this ought to be interesting! They invited us to take a poster... from 1998. (I did, it was pretty)
The packets had the bib, a tylenol 8-hour (I do really appreciate that, as I can't take ibuprofen), a tube of hand lotion, and a cool eyeglass retainer.
I'm excited. Though I think this is really just one of my long walks, but organized, sorta. Like, maybe there'll be aid stations. Who knows? Maybe it will be warm and really windy, like it is right now. All I know is that I'm gonna do it, and I'm prepared. And hopefully, that's enough.
June 3, 2005
le Shed, c'est arrivé!
I checked the voicemail, and we had one message from the shed salesman, saying it would be over first-thing in the morning. The next message came from the shed scheduler, who said the shed would be delivered late afternoon. Sweetie called them, and learned that they would be here around noon.
So, at 8:30, I'm still drinking coffee in my bed clothes, thinking about all the things I should bring with the Hood River, when I hear a truck outside. And, of course, it's got a shed on the back.
The shed guys were wonderful. They totally got this pre-made shed exactly where I wanted it. Amazing! I was totally impressed with their finesse, and their can-do attitude.
So, now we have a shed. After all this work, and all this worry, it's present tense. We have a shed. Damn! Now we just need to have a shed party.
I have a flickr site with the progression of the driveway if you are so interested.
...
The last 24 hours has really been touch and go, emotionally. I hit a new low point yesterday which pretty much incapacitated me. It was a little too interesting, if you ask me. Today I'm doing better, which is not to say great. I just want to get back to normal.
And, here is the weather for the Gorge for Sunday:
June 2, 2005
stickers for the scoot
I want to tell you that I'm doing better, but it's really touch and go today. What has been most frustrating has been my absentmindedness—remembering that my super-cool scooter hoodie is still on the rack at home when I'm a mile from home on the scooter; remembering my coffee cup, sitting on my desk where I left it, when I walk into the coffee shop. There's more and it's not pretty.
We did a bunch more shed-related activities last night: going and buying weed blocker, sand, and gravel—oh, and light bulbs! We came home, I changed lightbulbs (two out of three of our exterior lightbulbs were dead), and then, I dug up a couple of diseased rosebushes. That was so satisfying. Those rosebushes have been there for ten years, and they've been diseased for ten years, and I'm not entirely sure why I've left them there. But now that they are gone, I feel like there is so much potential for that space.
I still needed to fill up the second hole with the dirt I had removed from it, and move the tiny, tiny shrub rose (literally) from one side of the fence to the other, but it was full-on dark, so I gave up. I figured I'd take care of that stuff this morning. Yeah, right.
This morning, I was much more interested in stickers.
I mentioned to my office mate yesterday that my Electra Bicycle stickers are scheduled to arrive today, and her response was immediately to google "stickers". I swear, she is the fastest googler around. Anyways, she immediately found a sticker selling web site that I found very hard to navigate, but had these occasional glints of genius, and I became obsessed.
My sweetie and I talk a lot about decorating our scooters. He has a large canvas for that sort of thing, but I don't, really. Which doesn't deter me from thinking about it, a lot.
I've been entirely obsessed with decorating it with old school tattoo swallows, and I've been thinking that I'd have to get some tattoo flash, and resize it, and then have a custom sticker made. Which, you know, makes me tired just thinking about it.
But lo, and behold, while this isn't exactly what I wanted, it's pretty damn close.
June 1, 2005
General chemical sadness
I am struck by a sudden sadness. I don't know what this is about—my day is going fine, or fine enough, but I am quite blue and I can't say why.
(I do too much non-activity related pissing and moaning here, so I'm moving this off the main page...)
I did some organizing at home before leaving for work, and I did some Getting Things Done stylee list-making on the bus. Immediately upon getting into work, I had to go into a meeting, which kinda turned into one of those VJ is holding up the whole operation meetings—at least, it felt that way to me. That sums up the way I feel about work right now. Anyways, one of my coworkers pigeonholed me after the meeting, and said that while she could tell that I felt like I was raining on the parade, no one else, including our boss, seemed to think so.
Breathe, VJ, breathe.
I went to allegro, a half hour session, my last formal exercise of the week. My trainer is so great. She was all about lots of leg and glute stretching, and lots of ab work. I concentrated, but I felt like my abs were not terribly cooperative today.
I feel like I mention to someone that I'm going to do a marathon on Sunday, that the response is disbelief, as in, there's no way in hell you could do that. I know that that's not true, that people are reacting that way. But I'm feeling that way.
My trainer mentioned that she thought I was losing weight. I feel like I am so stuck, like I am always going to be at this plateau. And I know I could work harder, drink less beer, be more thoughtful about eating less at dinner, and hopefully rock myself out of this place. But damn it, it's so much work, and, ugh. Anyways, next week I'm going to see a naturopath to see if she has suggestions for how to get back on the weightloss wagon.
But back to the story, sorta. So I get undressed, completely nekkid, and go over to the scale to find out if, maybe, this weight-loss thing is true. And the scale is gone! I guess the scale was sick.
So I got my clothes back on and went to the bookstore. I had promised myself that I would go to the little local bookstore and buy myself some books for the-day-before-the-marathon when I must recline and read, and perhaps watch movies. And I immediately saw Portland Hill Walks which has been on my short list for the last couple weeks.
And then I didn't buy it. I didn't buy anything. What the hell is that about?
I started thinking about this side project that sprung fully-formed outta my head. I'm constantly obsessing about how something transportation-related is my next career. Anyways, the next project would be a PDX walk/run/bike database—it would have distances, public transportation connections, maps, you name it. But right now I'm stuck on designing the database—I'd like people to be able to start, say, at Hwy 43 or at the hospital. So rather than doing something I could actually do right now if I made the time to work on it, I have this idea that I haven't fully fleshed out, and the fact that I haven't thought it through makes me feel less than worthy.
And then, I was afraid. I don't want to plagarize in anyway from the PHW book, and even though I know I won't, the purchase of the book seems to be a bad idea. Oh, VJ, chill out.
I am distracted by smells. Food smells, the guy eating soup while I'm eating my sandwich, the smell of my coworker's dipping sauce. The rose buds I brought in. The strawberry I just ate.
Of course, this all might have to do with the fact that I ran out of one of my antidepressants, the anti-anxiety one, on Saturday. I got a couple to tide me over until my doc decides to renew it, but yesterday and today have been really rough.
Clearing the mind
The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.
—Captain J. A. Hatfield
from Getting Things Done
Upcoming Events (that might be interesting)
June 18 Walk With Me Marathon and half
July 4 Sauvie Island Fast Flat 13.1
July 10 Go Girl 5K
July 24 Run Hit Wonder 10K
July 24 Walk or Run for the Wildwood 13.1, 20 miles
July 30 Mt Hood Pacific Crest Trail Ultramarathon
August 12 Crawfish Crawl 5K
August 13 Garlic Festival 10K
August 26-27 Portland to Coast Relay
September 5 Wildwood Trail Trial 10k
September 11 Pints to Pasta 10K
September 24 Best Dam Run & Walk 10K
October 2 Great Columbia Crossing added by Tszuj
October 9 Portland Marathon
October 23 26.2—the Nike Women's Marathon added by Erin
October 29 Fury of the Falls 5.6 miles
November 5 Autumn Leaves Run 25k, 50k
November 6 City of Trees Marathon, Boise ID
November 27 Seattle Marathon
