Applicable?

I am blogging maniac today!

2 quotes. The first one forwarded by The Lawyer, source unclear (she referenced both the Bible and Gilmore Girls. As far as I know, she is not an avid Bible reader, but who knows. Maybe she 'got religion' over the past week.)

"Furthermore, it was a drama played for laughs and speed, yet its greatest
theme was dead serious: Love is its own reward, but it can leave some of the
best humans unrewarded."

The second from the book I am reading for an upcoming book club. I want to be able to describe someone in this way. Candidates for this honor are welcome to apply through my email.

"...in the face very like a horse eating an apple through a wire-netting
fence."

Bullets

• Last night, I hung out with my friends Absolut Ruby Red and Club Soda. Later on, we were joined by Ben & Jerry. My old nemesis, Camel Light, was there, but I managed to ignore him.
• re: Mystery Girl. I'm not sure she would even have a blog, because that would automatically render her less mysterious.
• I have no plans tonight, other than a haircut. I am PSYCHED. Can anyone say Lost, Season 2?
• I'm going to wedding on Saturday by myself. I will only know JP and his girlfriend, whom I've privately nicknamed 'buzzkill'. She kinda hates me. This should be a fun night.
• Several friends have said 'But maybe you'll meet someone at this wedding!' with a kind of glee that should only be reserved for sappy 80's movies or romance novels. While I appreciate their enthusiasm, such statements ensure that I will be stumbling my drunk ass home alone on Saturday night.
• Maybe I won't be alone. I can always rely on my old friend, McDonald's Extra Value Meal #2 to provide support and companionship.
• I should probably start spending more time with other friends, like Fruits & Vegetables or Lean Proteins.

New Name

Due to some unintentionally wacky hijinks involving me at work this morning at o'dark thirty and an unlocked supply closet, I am currently being referred to by my co-workers as 'mystery girl'. (And I can't think of a way to explain this without a long, boring story about our key hiding 'system' along with the, ahem, rigidity of my colleagues, so I'll spare you the details. You can thank me later.)

I think I kinda like it. I wonder if it will stick.

And now I am going to mysteriously go to the gym. And mysteriously run 5 miles.

Vows of Poverty

I woke up this morning thinking about my finances. Specifically, that I am living paycheck to paycheck, and I really hate it.

So I lay in bed going over my expenses (sexy!) and came to realize that there is a very definite reason why I am struggling to get by each month (other than, you know, that I'm a social worker and I live in New York City, and I go out a lot.)

My stupid insurance company owes me $1600 in medical reimbursements from 4 months of out-of-pocket expenses! (And my ex-fiance owes me $28,000 - but that's a story for another time.)

I'm no math genius, but I believe that an extra $400 each month would surely make a difference in my budget. And so my mission of the day (directly after writing a grant that is due tomorrow, and seeing clients, and all that job stuff) is to harrangue and harass my insurance provider until I get paid.

And thus it is written and thus it shall be.

Help Me Help You

It is hard not to feel like the proverbial crazy lady as you are in line at the local Food Emporium, stuffing your groceries into your gym bag in an effort not to use any plastic bags so that Al Gore doesn't get mad at you.

Along the same vein, I could've had a hand in 'erasing' domestic violence (apart from my job, that is) had I managed to get my ass out of bed on Sunday morning.

Rage!

On Friday night, after spending a very pleasant Happy Hour with DJ and B, a man ran up behind me and grabbed my ass as I exited the subway station.

And when I turned around and yelled at him about it, he tried to make believe it had been an accident, and that I was making a big deal out of nothing.

And when I refused to accept this fiction, he proceeded to follow me down the street, calling me names.

I don't know if I'm angrier at him for his behavior, or at myself for believing (at one point) that I was overreacting. Or mostly mad at myself that I'm mad at myself for an incident that was clearly all his fault.

The crazy thing is that, if I took a poll, I'm sure that almost every one of my female friends could tell a similar story of some kind of violation in their history. And it makes me wonder, despite the work that I am engaged in (which requires a fair amount of hope in prevention and change) if there is any possibility of ending this kind of entitled behavior.

I hate that I am still thinking about it this morning.

An Apology Of Sorts

Dear Body:

I am truly sorry for my eating habits over the past 2 weeks. In particular:

- multiple Boston Kreme infractions (Dunkin' Donuts)
- an entire 12" meatball parm sub (Sal's)
- pint of Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream (Haagen Daz)
- 12" cheesesteak, extra Cheese Whiz (Philly)
- pork fried rice, egg roll (Red Apple Chinese)
- fried platter: onion rings, cheese sticks, calamari, chicken fingers (Landsdowne)
- assorted Hershey's miniatures (office)

I am hoping the brown rice with organic vegetables that I just ate will serve as partial atonement.

Sincerely,
ridiculouschick

Faith, Part III

My mission lately, other than pointless television or binge eating/drinking, is to put together the puzzle of my relationship history, in the hopes that a full picture will bring clarity.

A friend recently asked if I was dating, and when my response was non-committal, he asked if I even wanted to get married, ever. As if maybe I wasn't applying myself. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I keep picking the same kind of person on purpose. Maybe I'm missing the warning signs. Maybe I self-sabotage more than I realize.

I can't see it right now. I had some profound (deeply profound, trust me) thoughts when waking up this morning, related to a concept from Harry Potter and free will v. compulsion (oh yes, profound) but they disappeared somewhere between getting out of bed and my arrival at work.

Your Upper Lip Is Part Of Your Face, I Guess

As I discovered this morning, the people at Nair are not kidding when they warn that you cannot use that stuff on your face.

Television Is My New BFF...

...along with red wine and the gulping of the aforementioned red wine.

As of today, I'm all caught up with Veronica Mars (iTunes), Ugly Betty, Notes From The Underbelly, Brothers & Sisters (ABC.com), and Lost, Season 1 (Netflix).

Oh, and now I can actually watch shows as they are broadcast because I've finally figured out how to split the signal from my internet connection. (If anyone from Time Warner cable is reading this, I am totally kidding.)

My guilty pleasure of the moment is The Bachelor, which I cannot stop watching, especially since I attended grad school with one of the contestants. Seriously, it's just so cheese-tastic and awful, particularly when they show him tooling around in his I-have-a-small-penis sports car, or when they play "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" in homage to the 'Officer and a Gentleman' theme. Awkward dating situations/interactions are mighty fun when you're not personally involved.

If I put some serious effort into it, I can be ready for the new Grey's Anatomy tomorrow night, and get through Lost, Season 2 by Saturday afternoon.

See? I was all worried about goals and boredom and lack of direction and blah, blah, blah after the half marathon, but I'm going to be just fine. (I could probably lay off some of the 'celebratory' eating, but that's a post for another day.)

Mantastic!

Friday night got a little bit ugly when MS, Groom and I found ourselves in a local sports bar, devouring a platter of fried food and mocking the nicknames on the back of a softball team's jerseys (for some reason "Clutch" inspired particularly virulent derision).

And then, in the midst of our ridicule, we looked over and realized that this was JP's softball team. Which meant that A. was there.

(Here's the A. summary that I provided for Groom on Friday night: 'Dated briefly, abruptly blew me off only to call three weeks later to explain that he had rediscovered his Judaism, and was already dating other women, but might be open to dating me at a later time, should his religious preferences change.')

Ugh. So I debated for a bit, knowing that it would be better if I made the first move, but also aware that I was 4 vodka-and-sodas in, and not entirely coherent. I also spent that time begging (in vain) for MS and Groom to not be so blatantly obvious in their attempts to check him out, having never met him while we were dating.

Finally, I just sucked it up and went to talk to him. Which wasn't as bad as it could have been, but wasn't entirely comfortable either. Let's put it this way: I was giving myself the internal 'shut up' command several times during the conversation, and there were lapses of silence, and maybe some not-entirely-covert looks exchanged among the softball team.

Between the J. situation, and the JP mess (which I can't even get into) and then this awkwardness with A. and the utterly bad idea of going out with MySpace guy - I think it's time to take a dating break for a while. All signs point to disaster.

Proof

Half Marathon Photos!

(Note: The clock on the second photo reflects gun time, not chip time. My actual finish time was 4 minutes faster.)

(I don't know why I felt the need to clarify that.)

Faith, Part II

Maria: Where the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.

Oh, I believe it. MySpaceGuy, who I've been crushing on for a while now, has asked me out for a drink next week.

Can I get an Amen?

The Case of the Disappearing J.

So, to turn our attention briefly away from the whole running thing...

I have not heard from J. in 12 days, and I'm thinking that's a pretty good indicator that we're not going to continue dating. (I know. I'm quick like that.) The last communication that I did receive from him was a text message that he was on his way out of town, and that he would call me when he got back. I'm still waiting.

Last Friday, I sent a short email asking what was happening, explaining that I really liked him, and that I wanted the chance to continue to get to know him. No response. And I knew on Sunday, when he failed even to send the barest acknowledgement regarding the race, that we were done.

I just don't understand why.

I'm not so much sad as I am frustrated. I felt myself getting closer and closer to him. I felt like I wanted to stop dating other people. And if you're not on the same page as I am, fine. But the utter lack of communication regarding the end infuriates me. Sure, breaking things off with someone is uncomfortable, but it's part of being an adult. You've seen me naked! Which by my rules means that you at least owe me this last conversation.

This is such a familiar pattern for me. Since I've lived in NYC, I've reached this point with every guy that I've dated - that space between casual dating and exclusivity - only to see the relationship abruptly terminate. Is it me? Or is this city over-populated with a particular brand of committment-phobic manchild?

All I know is that this kind of behavior got old in the 5th grade.

Missing

I just took the half marathon countdown clock off the blog.

It feels really strange not to have this goal in front of me. My planner, which has tracked my training progress for the past four months, has no required mileage noted today. I don't have to lug my gym bag to work with me.

I'm a little restless and a little bored. And the idea of the NYC marathon looks better and better.

2:19 and Something

Yeah, so that would be me, about 20 minutes after finishing my first half-marathon. The picture is taken by my own camera phone, in OrangemanMike's car, on the way to get our celebratory eat on.

Don't I look happy? I was ecstatic.

The race was beautiful. It was also one of the hardest things I have ever done. When my trainer said that running was 90% mental, she knew what she was talking about. Because you can prepare all you want, but when it comes down to it, it's just you and the road and 13.1 miles stretching ahead of you.

That being said, the crowds were incredibly helpful during my quest for the finish line. Especially my friends and family in the crowds who had gotten up early to get to the race site, and had waited for me to run by them, only to walk to the next location and wait again. It was chilly yesterday if you weren't running.

There were stretches with no spectators (and I had chosen to run without my iPod) but even those miles felt good. The best feeling might have been at mile 10, when I made a left turn and saw the ocean, and knew that I was going to finish. (Or at mile 9, when I was offered Oreos, M&M's and Jelly Beans at the 'High Energy Station' and managed to find humor in my refusal.)

I ran the whole way. I beat my goal time. I actually sprinted across the finish line.

And when I was asked (by The Librarian) about a minute after I stopped running if I was going to run the NYC full marathon, I replied without hesitation.

"Oh yeah!"

Spring Cleaning

Hi Everyone:

I'm still not feeling great, but I'm running this Sunday. I went to my therapist this morning, and will be doing some healing work with LK this afternoon, which should (hopefully) empty out some of this junk in my head.

Because running with as little baggage as possible seems ideal.

I'll be back online Monday, and with any luck, be able to post some pictures from the race. Thanks for all the support.

ridiculous

Burn This Motha Down!

Wikipedia, "Scorched Earth" entry:

A scorched earth policy is a military tactic which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. Apparently a translation of Chinese 焦土 (Jiao Tu), the term refers to the practice of burning crops to deny the enemy food sources, although it is by no means limited to food stocks, and can include shelter, transportation, communications and industrial resources...

Roiphe, New York Magazine:

There is something that happens when you burn your entire life down. The feeling is raw, close to the bone, jangly, nervous, productive.

(And seriously, I know that these are sourced wrongly. I'm out of practice since grad school ended. Bite me. I will, however, apologize for the randomness of this post.)

Along with the sickness and the race anxiety, and the other anxieties, I've been thinking a lot about tearing down, specifically related to the Ex Fiance. I'm not sure why he's cropping up now - perhaps because April is the time that I finally left for good, for the last time. Or maybe it's because the half-marathon is near our old neighborhood, and I half expect to see his face (or other faces that I left behind) along the race route.

Mainly, though, it's about that wonderful, ugly tendency/propensity of mine to destroy. There's something ultimately thrilling and terrible about watching yourself tear down your life - it's so extreme - yet, all of the times that I've done this, I can recall a detached numbness, followed by intense joy. How else can you describe the feeling of issuing a gigantic FUCK OFF to all of your carefully laid plans?

I don't know why I let the bullshit get to me, when really, all I should be leery of is the halfway.

Little, Very Little

• I'm still sick. But as of today, I'm, um, expectorating, which I take as a positive sign that my body is making efforts to expel the illness from my lungs.
• I still have a scratchy throat. Drinking cold water from our cooler helps...but also creates a lot of sloshing around in my stomach, and...added to the slight pervasive feeling of nausea that I've had over these past few days, it's not good.
• Uninterupted sleep has been impossible this week. Even if I take Tylenol PM (or a glass of red wine), I'm still waking up in the middle of the night.
• Regardless, I am running this race on Sunday.
• The sickness and the race are extremely trivial when you consider this morning's event: attending the funeral of a work colleague's husband. I met her sons, one of whom grasped my hand and seemed not to be able to let go. This made me want to weep uncontrollably, which I delayed until I reached the privacy of my office.
• My work environment became marginally less creepy today as we now have a security guard posted in our building, which came about after an "actively psychotic" woman entered yesterday and threatened several staff members.
• Did I mention that I am running this race on Sunday?

Sick

I woke up yesterday morning with a sore, scratchy throat. I'm coughing frequently, and my ribs hurt. I'm not sure if this is an actual illness or allergies kicking in.

Nonetheless, I've been taking Tylenol PM and going to bed super early (8 pm last night. For reals. ) in the hopes that whatever is going on will be defeated by large amounts of sleep. I'm supposed to be taper-training and over-hydrating this week...all I can concentrate on is getting out of bed and getting to work.