The good thing about lurking on mailing lists is that it saves me from displaying my inept debate skills. It's lucky we have people like LaT and Maygra around to make intelligent, well thought out points about list discussions, because my responses to all the yakking about fic warnings and knee-jerk Victoria hatred and misogyny are best summed up ala Omar of mightybigtv: First of all, SHUT UP. No, really. Shut. Up. And then bite me.
In other news, Clark kinda almost reminded me of Fraser in this episode, what with the self-denial in the face of higher moral ground in the loft scene with Lana. And pretty much any way that Clark reminds me of Fraser is a good way.
Whitney...has potential. He and Clark have some nice buddy/rival chemistry in the lunchroom scene (and TW! Do mine eyes deceive me, or were you...emoting for a moment there?), and I just like his overall vibe. Go, Whitney.
1. I have wanted to run a marathon since I was twelve. However, the longest distance I'd ever done before I started running semi-regularly in grad school was two and a half miles. I am not in any sense of the word a good distance runner. I have neither the build nor the strength for it, yet it's the only form of exercise I've ever been able to stick to. I'm not even sure that I like running, but I think I might be a little in love with it.
2. The first guy I ever dated is now my husband. We met in band camp the week before the beginning of ninth grade, and were a couple within a week. We've been married almost nine months, but together for over ten years. At twenty-five, that's two-fifths of my life. I still think he's cool.
3. The most scared I can ever remember being was the summer after third grade, when my family visited my grandparents in New Hampshire. My cousin, then 14-ish, thought it would be fun to show the little girl Nightmare on Elm Street. It sounds lame down on paper, but at the time I thought I would never stop shaking.
4. I have so far lived a remarkably G-rated life. I don't smoke, drink rarely, and pretty much stopped swearing out loud when I got hired as a speech therapist. I went straight from high school to college, and from college to grad school. I've always made good grades. Adults like me. I never really went through a teenage rebellion phase, and I sometimes lack patience with those who did.
5. I had imaginary friends until I was at least eleven. The last one, imaginary twin brother Jonah (or possibly Jonas--I'm ashamed to admit I've forgotten), served as a sort of guardian angel/Marty Sue, and kept me sane through the throes of puberty.
6. From the time I was eight until my last year of college, I was involved in practically every form of music group know to man: orchestra, string orchestra, concert band, pep band, marching band. I played violin for nine years, french horn for ten, and sang in kid choirs for three or four. I have a fantastic ear for pitch; the kind that fools people into thinking you either have perfect pitch or are much more talented than you actually are. However, for some reason this skill only applies to the violin--I was always out of tune on the horn. I quit all music cold turkey when I left college, and I miss none of it except the kid choirs. If I could have one musical talent, I'd wish for a decent singing voice.
7. When I was in eighth grade, a serial killer murdered five college students in my hometown. I don't remember a lot of details about the case--it was too scary to seem real to me at the time--but I remember bits and pieces of the town's reaction. Arranging a code word with the pizza delivery guy so you would know it was safe to open the door. Petite brunettes urged to use extreme caution. Not being able to ride my bike home through the wooded section that separated my neighborhood from the school. The guy was eventually caught, and I believe he's currently on death row.
8. The earliest nightmare I remember was of standing in a swampy field watching a moose gore my mother.
9. I was born six weeks premature. They got me out by C-section, because I was "in distress." In the first picture taken of me I have tubes up my nose.
10. The physical feature I am most vain about is my eyes. I don't personally find them all that striking--not to mention they don't work all that well--but I've literally had total strangers stop me on the street to compliment them. Multiple times.
In other news:
*I have a cold. Again.
*I ran 21 miles on Saturday morning without significant mishap.
*Saturday afternoon, still dopey after my nap, I flushed one of my contacts down the sink. I've been wearing my back-up glasses ever since, which means my depth perception's just a touch off; enough to make me crash into more furniture than usual.
*Because you asked, LH: my dad sent me a Dr. Seuss shirt featuring the Cat in the Hat, Thing One, and Thing Two in the most eye-searing shades of red and turquoise known to man. The after-image of this shirt is still etched into my corneas. Astronauts orbiting the earth can see this shirt. Hell, they can probably see the after-image etched into my corneas. Ladies and gentlemen: my father.
All I feel today is envious. Other people are reading cool books and having dinner parties and analyzing the Lionel characterization in Smallville fic (the January 21st entry), and I'm...not. I'm writing re-eval reports and carbo-loading and running and not finishing any cool books, because I have to go to sleep early enough to get up and do it all again.
Goddamn hormones. That's enough of that.
The one birthday present I specifically requested was one of those soft-sided CD folders that I could keep in my glove compartment. The idea was to free up some space in my car by removing the CD cases that were crammed into every available nook and cranny--there were at least thirty in the front seat alone. As a space-creating option, the CD folder works just great, but I think I discovered a down side to the new storage plan. If there's a list somewhere of stupid ways to get yourself killed, "flipping pages in a CD holder and squinting at album titles done in fancy, illegible fonts while driving down a winding highway in the dark," is on that list.
The birthday package from my parents has not yet arrived. Yesterday I received an email from my father containing this exact quote: "I myself bought you one of the presents in the box that (hopefully) you have got. ALL BY MYSELF, no help, no prompting. Who says I don't have fashion sense. "Quiet Elegance" is my middle name."
Happy birthday to me, baby. I'm twenty-five, and can now rent a car in any state in the US. I'm celebratin' on the inside, believe you me.
Had a very pleasant day so far, really, although it's not like it would be hard to top last year. I spent several hours of the big 2-4 in the ER waiting room while the Hubster-to-be got his corneal abrasion tended to, and then a couple more driving around picking up prescriptions for him. Sitting at my desk working on my backlog of evaluation reports was an infinitely preferable way to spend today. Plus, my coworkers got me lemon pastries and a cute card, although I'm a little puzzled at some of the signatures. ES, the younger occupational therapist with the full-on, non-ironic *NSync obsession, was in Vegas today, and her signature said, "Happy Birthday! I'll bring you a picture of a showgirl!" Like, perhaps I should evaluate the messages I've been sending her.
There's a stamp on the back of my hand; a faded, blurry smudge of ink feathered out across the ridges of my tendons and bleeding into geometric designs in my pores. It looks like nothing so much as a smashed fairy. Appropos, I guess, as it's the entrance stamp from some goth/punk club we went to last night on a whim. The club was a favorite college hangout of friends C and S, and we all four ended up there after dinner downtown, as a bit of a trip down memory lane. New name, new ownership, but apparently very little else had changed: black decor, poorly lit stage, and a carefully cultivated atmosphere of seediness like a veil over both the locale and the patrons. Or hell, maybe it really was seedy, but it reminded me a little too much of the sets of every punk rock movie I've ever seen to feel quite real. Strangely enough, I felt the most relaxed there that I've ever been in a club. There was a sense of calm there, and more importantly, a lack of a goddamned dress code that I wasn't living up to. I never dress up just to go out--I will if there's a reason, like there might be fancy restaurants involved, or we're meeting somebody's parents, or it's a real live Special Occasion, but just to go sit some place and eat and maybe have a beer? Forget it.
I'm kind of defensive about this, actually. It's more than, "If I can't wear jeans there, they don't get my money," it's about my full-on resistance to being physically on display. I'm not for sale, damn it. If you don't want to talk to the short girl in the sweater and sneakers, if you need an up-close view of my rack before we can have a conversation...bite me. You aren't my type. Yeah, this attitude does put a good sized chip on my shoulder, but it's also worked for me so far.
Today was a day of unnecessary length. Dragged myself out of bed after too little sleep, drove to work grouchy, saw one kid, and then suffered through a really long, really inappropriate evaluation. (Okay, call me callous, but if you're severely mentally retarded? And you're 36 years old? And you're not talking or even really communicating by now? Chances are I can't do a whole lot for you. I mean, you absolutely deserve the opportunity to try all the options I can think of, but let's keep it real, okay?) Finished the eval. Lay in my desk chair like a zombie. Had a little bright spot in the form of my 12:30 kid, SC, who is really cool for a six year old. She's just...she's fun. I wish she were my age so we could hang out, which is a weird way to relate to a kid, I know, but I just like her. She's hit the point where she's started testing out the differences between her worldview and that of other people, so she has a tendency to pop out with rather startling questions without apparent provocation. Today, very casually, she turned to me and said, "Do you believe in God?" Me, surprised but going with matter-of-fact: "Yep, I do." SC: "I do. So does my grandpa. Can I get a drink of water before we read the book?" Some days with her I just watch the conversational topics whiz by.
The afternoon was draining. I had a very long, not entirely successful discussion with a parent regarding her child's progress, during which I was not able to broach the issue that I desperately wish to bring up with her, namely that her kid has fucking Asperger's syndrome (really high functioning autism) or I'll eat my hat. It's quite obvious to everybody but her, and I know I need to respect her emotional timetable, but some days that works every shred of patience I have.
So, drained and cranky, I dragged myself to the car so I could drive back down south and meet the Hubster for dinner before my church group, which I was not feeling terribly enthusiastic about attending. Turned on the CD player, and in it was the Stan Rogers CD the Hubster'd given me for Christmas. My bad mood...evaporated. That man's voice is a sacred space for me; an instrument that can break my heart and flay me open, and his music is not up for discussion with me. It's like something Aral said in a long-ago entry about Hedwig: sometimes things are too...close to you to be analyzed or discussed. Stan Rogers is for me. "Northwest Passage" is, both the song and the whole album. They're little things, but I find them holy.
Other subjects not open for analyzation:
*Children's author L.M. Boston. The Sea Egg in particular.
*The XF episode "One Breath."
*The times I've felt God speaking to me.
*Sometimes, my religion.
*My marriage vows.
*Melancholy over tv shows.
*The way I feel about Fraser.
*Sometimes, True North.
There are others, but it's late and I have to go to sleep.
Hey, WB? You know how after the show airs, you do some commercials and then you show the previews for next week's episode? Who exactly would I have to kill to get the previews for the show I just finished watching? Yes, yes, I know you're trying to broaden your audience and it's a marketing technique and all, but really, if I gave a flying fuck about what's coming up on Dawson's Creek, I'd be watching Dawson's Creek. Show me the previews for Smallville already.
Feeling distinctly pleased with myself. I tried to post the previous entry yesterday when blogger was acting up, and blogger tried to piss me off by losing it, but HA HA HA HA HA I had saved the entry before it got trashed. I give blogger the finger.
A brief history of Saturday's 18-plus mile run, with emphasis on the pain:
Mile One: Boring. Legs feel slow. The prospect of being only one eighteenth done is too daunting to contemplate.
Mile Two: Still feel slow. My running partner, S, checks her watch and realizes we are going too fast, which may explain why I feel
like I'm struggling.
Mile Three: Better. One sixth done.
Mile Five: Don't feel anywhere near as good as last weekend, but seem to have gotten over the initial hump.
Mile Six Point Five: S is stricken with abdominal cramps and an urgent need to find a restroom. Worry.
Mile Seven: Stop for Port-a-Potty break. S discovers she is passing blood, which is definitely Not Good. Decides she had better stop for the day, but insists that she will wait at the trail head for me to finish, even though it will probably be another couple of hours. Head out alone.
Mile Eight: Thirsty, which is unusual. Indicates I am not properly hydrated, although I did my damndest to stock up on fluids. Beginning to feel salt crusting on my forehead.
Mile Nine: Halfway done. Thank God.
Mile Eleven: Traffic on the trail begins to thin out, but not to the point where I feel unsafe. Am now halfway through the seven mile loop for the second time. Boring.
Mile Twelve: Take a break from the GU energy supplement and eat some cookies.
Mile Twelve Point Five: Worry about sphincter control. Decide to avoid the cookies in the future.
Mile Fourteen: Back at the trail head. Wash salt crust off my face with water from the fountain. It's close enough to dark that I decide to avoid the more interesting wooded, secluded trail loops in favor of the boring but well-lit one mile time trial loop for the remaining 4.6 miles. Legs ache all over. Wish I could stop, but won't.
Mile Fifteen: Dear Lord, I hate the time trial loop. Legs hurt. Distinctly aware of the way my index and pinky toes on both feet are bruised. Only four more loops to go.
Mile Sixteen: Boring boring boring. Want to stop. Reflect on the sheer number of times I've heard people say, "If you do the 18-mile benchmark, you'll do the marathon!" Fantasize about the tub full of cold water. Three loops left. Keep going.
Mile Seventeen: Pain. Please let me finish. It's almost full dark out.
Mile Seventeen Point Five: Decide that even the time-trial loop is dark enough to be scary. The marathon is not worth getting mugged and/or raped and killed over. Decide to finish the last mile by running back and forth along the brightly lit sidewalk on the street side of the loop. In pain.
Mile Eighteen: Pain pain pain pain please let me finish before I die.
Mile Approximately Eighteen Point Six: Ow. Stumble back to car. S's car is still parked next to mine, but she's nowhere to be seen. Stretch, painfully. Leave S a message on her home phone. About to get in the car when S comes running up from the trail head with her dog, deeply relieved to see I have not been mugged and/or killed, as it is now full dark. Turns out she's just come from the doctor's office, where she passed a gall stone. No wonder she wasn't feeling well. Thank her profusely for waiting for me in such a state. Get in car, painfully. Drive home. Climb stairs like a feeble old woman. Enjoy tub of freezing cold water far too much. Smile goofily, because damn. 18.6 miles.
Two activities that should not be performed on the same day under any circumstances: taking a killer standardized test required for professional licensure, and running 18.6 miles. What in the name of all that is holy was I thinking? It's like, pain all over.
More on both of these activities when (if?) I recover.
Boring activity of the evening: shirt shopping with the Hubster. He desperately needs new work clothes, but did not like any of the shirts he got for Christmas:
The one from my mom: "I guess it's okay, but I don't think I'd wear it."
The one from my dad: "The style's fine. If it were any color other than dork blue..."
The one from his sister: "Am I supposed to wear it or use it to repel vampires?"
And people call me picky. In all fairness, though, the shirt from his sister was so awful as to defy description. Maybe she was thinking of his health.
Turns out there was no new episode of Smallville tonight, although I have been eating all my vegetables like a good girl. I may yet cry.
Oh, good Lord. I was trying to avoid posting any more today, because my sleep schedule is messed up and I feel decidedly peculiar (remind me again--why did I think it was a good idea to take a three hour nap yesterday late afternoon and then drink coffee after dinner? I couldn't fall asleep until 3am, and that is not normal behavior), but I just read Jessica's reaction to Lord of the Rings, and I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry. It's her January 3rd entry, in case there are depths to this linking business that I have not yet plumbed. Go read it.
Debating the merits of a big old weirdness-provoking entry on the dynamics of the Hubster and my relationship with our friends C and S. Seems compelling, in a train wreck kind of way, yet probably unwise. Also, there's the possibility of making much ado about nothing. So, short version: I'd thought that the cause of the edginess that pervaded my interactions with C was based more on our mutual delayed social development and a sort of "I bet you can't do eight shots of Jack Daniels and then eat this bug" unhealthy bravado than "hey, baby." I may have misinterpreted.
Future resolutions: Quit showing off how I can drink the Hubster under the table. Remember that drunken bonding is not always in my best interests. For God's sake, never ever get drunk enough to discuss porn with C. I know it seems like a fantastic idea, like the gateway to the funniest conversation known to man and fodder for years of viscious teasing, but it's Not Smart. Also, probably don't rehash the conversation the four of us had where C described in detail how far he would go with Johnny Depp, and his wife S ended up dismissing his every comment thereafter with, "Whatever, non-assfucking gay guy."
Heh. That was a fun evening.
Anyway, we went out to dinner with C and S last night, a dinner which was eventful mostly because of the complete lack of alcohol consumed. Debated going to the movies afterward, but it was kind of late and nothing we all wanted to see was still showing. Tossed around a bunch of not-so-exciting options. Decided against renting a movie, playing video games, drinking heavily, playing a perky Get Together Game, and going to Walmart. Just when it appeared we'd hit bottom and would have to just go home, the Hubster brought up geocaching. My dad had given him a hand-held global positioning system (GPS) for Christmas to use on his boat, because they're both freaks, and apparently he'd spent the afternoon tromping around in the tiny little park in our neighborhood using the GPS to home in on the exact latitude and longitude of a Tupperware container filled with dime-store prizes. And guess what: he'd saved the coordinates to a bunch of other caches around our city.
So, completely sober, at ten o'clock at night the four of us decide to buy grocery store flashlights, drive many miles south to the park, leave our cars in a nearby neighborhood in case The Man patrols this park after sundown, and hike through the mud and the underbrush in primo Blair Witch fashion in our unsuitable shoes. For the purpose of not finding a cache, because it turns out the city Parks and Recreation Department made the owner remove it two months ago. Because, (heh), the city felt that the location of the cache drew too much attention to some little sinkhole-style caves on the outskirts of the park. I have to agree with The Man in this instance, because we did all four of us climb over a retaining wall to poke around in those caves, even after we realized that the coordinates were too far off for the cache to be hidden in them. I swear, the evening was like a double feature of When Geeks Go Bad.
Had a fabulous 13 mile run today with my group. I'm so relieved. I ran a little bit over the break, but nothing longer than about 45 minutes, and fairly sporadically too, so what with getting sick back in mid-December I basically took a month off. The marathon's coming up fast--I think it's February 17th--and our 18 mile benchmark run is next weekend, so this weekend's run was essentially a test to see if I'd hamstrung myself, or if I'd be able to hack the longer distances. And it was a great run. Possibly the best run I've had with the group so far, and certainly the best long run I've ever had. I felt strong and fast, and my head was in just the perfect level of zone, where all parts of the environment--my lungs, my legs, the scenery, the steam huffing out of my mouth, the chatter of the other runners in the group--were at a balance, and the day just washed over me. It was beautiful. I try to run at the front of the pack anyway as a psychological tactic, but today I gravitated there naturally, and the last half-mile I just took off and left the group in the dust. I'm so relieved.
Came home and sat in the tub of cold water, which was...well, awful doesn't quite cover it. It didn't occur to me until the tub was full that, you know, it was cold out, and therefore the water coming out of the tap was going to be colder than normal. Mein Gott. It was freezing. My toes ached to the point where I started thinking of Titanic and hypothermia. But I got through my seven minutes of soaking, then a delicious, drugging hot shower, then felt like my body was cannibalizing itself from hunger, so I sped to the better of the two barbeque places within five minutes of my house and ordered an enormous plate of food. Ate like my life might possibly end any second, then went home and played on the computer.
We're supposed to meet some people for dinner in about half an hour, and the Hubster's getting antsy. Better go.
Today was long; a blur of empty time waiting for clients who didn't show, and warm dirty kid hands on my knees from the ones who did. Skinny eight year olds leaning against me, smelling of sweat and cold air. A set of parents who thanked me for being "such a great resource" for them, although honestly I don't feel that I have. GG with dark circles under his eyes, and irritation close to the surface. I worry about him; he's a Jehovah's Witness, and I think recently the disparity between his reality and his ideals has been harsh. I ache for him, because he's so full of love for our kids, but he hasn't yet found the partner he hopes God has in store for him. Lots of people hit their thirties in the same situation, but he believes there's a plan behind his loneliness, and I think it cuts him a little deeper than most.
Well, we're back. We actually got back Sunday night, but I've been boring, playing laundry catch-up and lying around for the past couple evenings. The trip was...pretty good. That's about as much emotion as I can work up about it just now. I mean, it was more or less fun, but it was also a damn lot of time in the car--we dubbed it the "all driving, all eating, all the time" holiday, as in, "Good thing sitting in the car burns off all those calories!"
I'd had a more elaborate entry planned--spent long stretches of time between gas station rest stops and grubby backwater McDonald's plotting how I'd approach the post-holiday blogfest--but I find now that I'm distracted by everything around me. The Hubster's got South Park blaring in the background, the laundry in the dryer downstairs is calling to me, the Bindlemix tape on my headphones is not producing the desired zone effect. The clock in the bottom right corner of my screen is taking on a cheesy air of menace, like it's ticking down the fruitful moments of my life or something. If I'm not careful, faces will start bulging out of the walls and the air will fill with the buzzing of invisible insects, or perhaps drifting ash.
Wow. No more Lost Boys for me, apparently. Like, ever. Which would be a shame, because I love that movie. I saw it in its entirety for the first time yesterday, spurred by Te's charming Smallville story (I can't quite call it a crossover, since they're distinct universes. Embedded crossover, maybe?), and it tickled humor zones I wasn't aware I had. The clothes, man, the hair...I almost never like horror movies--actively avoid them, most of the time, even the cheesy ones--but I'll want to watch this one again.
Okay, I give in. Maybe a couple of heads/tails from the trip.
Heads: The Hubster is a good driving companion, especially now that we've both mellowed a little in relation to tolerating each other's CDs. Typical music conversations now go something like this:
Me: What do you want to listen to now?
Hubster: Uh, I don't care. I'm gonna read anyway; you're driving, you pick.
Me: In that case, I want my due South CD. The second one. Volume Two.
Hubster, rooting through CDs in glove compartment, finding CD. Pulling it out and regarding the cover. Letting out a mocking squeal of girlish ecstacy: Oh, New Ray! Me: Shut up! Quit touching him with your nasty sticky hands.
Hubster: Bee-atch.
Tails: Having him in the car means I cannot obsessively hit the repeat button on the CD player for such essential mental health purposes as listening to "I Wanna Be Sedated" four or five times in a row.
Heads: I saw Lord of the Rings with my dad and mom and some friends. And, okay, I'll be honest. The movie was gorgeous, and there were parts where I found myself clutching my arms across my chest and unable to blink from suspense, and it did make me kind of want to read the books, but most of the fun was going with my dad. Apparently he read the trilogy in three days in college, and while he's not the fannish type, he was almost violently overexcited about the movie. My dad and I have a pretty good relationship, and I get the feeling that we will probably be excellent adult friends at some point, but we don't exactly have a lot of common interests. I mean, he's into developing gene therapies and I'm into Lex Luthor. So the chance to share the movie with him, and especially to hear him hash it out with my childhood buddy LL, who went with us, meant a lot. (LL, if you're reading, rock on).
Tails: That movie sure is three hours long.
Well, of course now I'm all juiced up and ready to pour out the rest of the vacation high and lowlights, but that damn clock is still in the bottom right corner, and it says I have twenty--make that nineteen--minutes before it's past my bedtime. So, goodnight.
