this might be marriage.

i packed my gym bag, took it downstairs, set it by the bathroom, and then i climbed the stairs and went to bed.

just before achieving sleep, i realized i hadn't put a bra in my gym bag.
i muttered something to the effect of "goddammit" into my pillow.
wondered briefly if i would remember to get it in the morning.
recalled all the times i did not. (nor my underpants, nor socks, nor shoes).

i got up.
fished a bra out of the drawer.
thought about all the time and energy it would take to walk all the way down the stairs, put it in my bag, and then walk all the way back up.
so, i threw it down the stairs
and went back to bed.

i lay in bed thinking about what a classy lady i am
and about what chris will do when he is on his way to bed and finds a bra sprawled across the bottom step.

then i realized this image would no longer faze him.
6 years ago, maybe he would have thought, "huh? what's this doing here?"
but now… he would think nothing of it.

chris will no more wonder why my bra is sprawled across the bottom step
than i wonder at the sight of his boxers on top of my piano.

this might be marriage.

alyssa milano never wrote me back.

I've thought about writing a million times. And then I didn't, and now I don't remember what I had to say in the first place (So it probably wasn't important.). Thoughts are like that. They just float in and out; I bet 3/4 of them aren't even mine--just remnants of some universal thought bank, wafting, passing through our membranes like smoke through clothes. I wish we had a way to track that (cross-country thought traveling). I guess we do. I guess it's called stories and art and music and dance and stuff. You know, expressive stuff. Maybe that's why the arts are so important--they connect us--maybe more so than banking does.

Although, that's not fair to say. I once had a pretty interesting connection with a lady who worked at a bank. Many many years ago I lived alone in a tiny apartment on the ground floor of an old house. The Mormons came a-knocking: a young woman about my age, and her mother. There was something about the young woman that I instantly liked (I think it's pretty easy to tell if someone is bringing you light.); plus it really interests me how people develop such strong convictions. I mean, it doesn't really matter what you think about Mormons: knocking on people's doors uninvited because you feel like you have a very important thing to tell them is a pretty ballsy thing to do.

Wait. Not Mormons. She wasn't a Mormon. Mormons are young men in black slacks and white button-downs. She was… I don't remember. But there was a kid in elementary school in Kansas who was this, too, and he had red hair and wasn't allowed to participate in any Christmas stuff.

It doesn't matter. Balls.

So, this young woman, I said, "Sure, come on in." And we talked for a while, and I learned that she had really explored different faiths extensively--traveled, read, experienced--and arrived at these convictions thoughtfully. I was impressed by that. She asked if she could come back, and I said "Sure" to that, too. So, for several weeks, she would come over, usually just by herself after that, and we'd hang out and talk about God and her faith. It wasn't a debate. I didn't agree with her, and I wasn't going to convert, but I liked hearing her talk about it. I think we just both kind of enjoyed the shared time. Then she left for a year-long mission trip.

Anyway, all that to say she worked at a bank. So you can work at a bank and still connect with humanity in meaningful ways. Actually, one thing my mom always told me, which I understand more and more, is that it really doesn't matter what you do for a living--that you always always always have an opportunity to make a difference to someone. (Relatedly, my dad always says it doesn't matter what you do for a living as long as you do it well and with integrity: doctor, attorney, barista, garbage collector, cable man, pizza delivery dude… whatever) I think that's why it's important that no matter how you earn your paycheck, you should try really hard not be an asshole while you do it.

[I don't know where this crap comes from. Sometimes I sit down to write, and I have no idea what I want to say until it starts coming out, and then I think, "What? What's that doing in there?"]

My body feels gross. It needs to get back to the gym. It needs me to stop putting so much garbage in it. It needs me to cut back on the wine. Really, I've been drinking too much wine. It needs me to rein it in, for crying out loud. It needs several days of fruit and veggies and water. It needs me to not stop at Walgreens on the way home from Chrispy's gig at midnight because I have a sudden overpowering urge for Milanos.

Which reminds me that I once wrote a letter to Alyssa Milano asking for advice about becoming an actress, and she never wrote back.

Jehovah's Witness. That's it. Man, I'm glad we got that squared away.

mr. wednesday and the poop filled sock

I feel like writing, but I don't feel like connecting any of my thoughts. Poor you.

My workout this morning was pitiful. The only way it could have been any more pathetic was if I had curled up on a weight bench with a bucket of fried chicken and a pillow. But you know, I went and all that.

I've had a lot of delightful moments this week. I say "delightful moments" because they were relatively insignificant blips in the day that made me happy. The first was when I was stuck behind a school bus on the way to work. We stopped at an apartment complex, where a group of elementary school kids lined up to board. Then, other kids came running out of buildings. Right in the middle of a flashback to my own school bus days, the very last kid busted out of a door, half the coat on, half the coat flapping at her side, hair a mess, and papers popping out of her unzipped backpack. And then I thought, "Ah, yes. There I am." And then I laughed loudly in my car for at least another 5 blocks.

I've been painting this week. I've been painting instead of practicing guitar and trying to write songs for the COFFEE project. (I've decided to call it "resting" instead of "avoiding.") I am not a good painter by any stretch. I don't paint things that look like other things. I just like to play with colors and brushes and see what happens. Yesterday, Chris compared my painting to "a sock filled with poop." He will deny this. But here is exactly what happened:

Chris: [Stands above painting, which is lying flat and in-progress, on the kitchen table.] Huh. Is it finished? [He smirks.]

Patresa: [Laughs.] What, can't you tell?

Chris: [Laughs.] Sure. [He continues to stare at the painting.]

Patresa: Do you love it? Is it your favorite? I think you love it. I'm going to hang it from the ceiling above your side of the bed, face down. So, you can look at it every morning and every night.

Chris: Oh yeah? Well, I'll fill a sock with poop and put it on your side of the bed.

Incidentally, no, it isn't finished; and I have no idea what it is, but it might turn into a bird. Note: Chris is actually my biggest fan and super supportive. He is also very honest.

We got a new dishwasher this week. The delivery/installation guy called me to set up a time to deliver/install. He left a message. Listening to his message, I jotted down some notes:

TIM          WEDNESDAY
555-5555
DISHWASHER

Chris saw the note and said, "Who's Tim Wednesday?" No, he wants to come over Wednesday. That's not his name. But we referred to him as "Mr. Wednesday" for the remainder. Tim came over on Wednesday and installed the dishwasher. He handed me his business card before he left, and I had a moment of genuine confusion when the last name printed on the card was not "Wednesday."

In anticipation of Mr. Wednesday's arrival, I told Chris, "I hope he has a nice crack."

Chris replied, "Nobody has a nice crack." I thought that was quotable and true. Nobody has a nice crack. It's not a remotely sexy part of the body. Butts are weird.

I wish grocery store produce aisles would label the produce more clearly. I had a recipe for sauteed parsnips and turnips. Standing in front of the produce, I didn't know which was which, only that they were one and the other. So I took one of each and figured, well, they'll both go in the pan. Covered. But they didn't have stickers, and the cashier asked me what they were. I said, "I don't really know," which I'm sure she found strange.

a pair of items

items:

1. Mr. Ebu Pants got into a fight last night and came home with swollen puncture wounds in his neck and poop on his drawers.

He's all better now. He's stretched out atop the length of my legs, and I feel his pudgy kitty belly rising and falling against my shins. A trip to the vet, some antibiotics, and he'll be right as rain. His neck is still swollen. But I think, if I may speak for Mr. Ebu, it would be shatting oneself while fighting that is the biggest injury.

Incidentally, I don't really appreciate it when I get bombarded with "cats should stay indoors" messages. Cats should stay indoors? Really? Why? Because they are descendants of… tupperware and sofas, and so it is their nature to lay around, clawless, on rugs? Maybe some cats are content to live that way, and maybe there are neighborhoods where a cat really can't (or shouldn't) go out… but Ebu isn't one of them, and this neighborhood is fine. He goes absolutely batpoop crazy locked inside. Batpoop. If I kept him inside, maybe he would live longer, but he certainly wouldn't be happier. There is something to be said for joy in the place of longevity. I have never seen a cat more joyful than one laying in the grass eating bugs. 

While I'm at it, I don't like this declawing business. I do not like it at all. Please stop doing that.

We have a 2nd cat, Smokey, who is Chris's cat. Smokey is declawed. Smokey does not go outside. Smokey is neurotic, annoying, and psychically twitchy. And if you think I am being too harsh, I invite you to come live with us for a week.

2. My insurance company has refused to pay the last 2 months of orthopedic related medical visits. Why? Because for some reason, they thought it was a work-related injury. They thought the torn tendon in my ankle and my fudged up knees was a result of my job analyzing data and monitoring contracts. What? No, I wasn't sitting at my desk too vigorously. I RAN A F***ING MARATHON! 

Seriously? Why in the world would they think this was work-related? That makes no sense.

I was a lot nicer than this when I called the insurance company, by the way.

3. I lost a filling while eating an Andes mint many months ago. I ignored it. Now, it is starting to hurt.

4. I had an excellent massage today.

The end.

spinach enchiladas.

taking note.

i don't know if this will make any sense. i'm in a hotel room in Waterloo. more travel. the last of the road trips. one more air trip (to D.C.). then december will end, and i intend to go home and stay home for a very long time. possibly forever. you may never see me leave my house again. ever. except to buy bananas. because i love bananas, and chris is not very good at picking out produce.

sidenote: my jeans are fitting more snuggly. this is concerning. end of sidenote.

today is World AIDS Day. prior to my current job, my only related experience with HIV/AIDS was to tell the students i worked with to use a frickin' condom, for God's sakes (but then i was really only thinking about how horrifying it would be if they brought children into their chaos. admittedly, i wasn't thinking about HIV. i wasn't even thinking about herpes. i just didn't want them procreating.). without detailing every nook and cranny, i have landed in this position within HIV Prevention through a strange and not-coincidental series of universe-nudges. at the risk of sounding like a total corndog, i was led here, and i wasn't exactly sure why. i'm still not exactly sure why (i still can't talk about s-e-x without blushing), but i always assume divine guidance happens because one has both something to offer and something to learn. when you feel the hand of God poking you in the ribcage, you should shut your big fat mouth and listen close.

and i have learned a lot in the past 1.25 years. HIV is so deeply embedded in context and complexity. so many large, dinosaur human systems at play, layered, and shifting (yet unmovable, oddly)-- so much overlap (spirit, economics, education, faith, culture, cognition…). roots incomprehensibly deep. HIV preventable, behaviorally based. but what's below that? and what's below that? and under that? and then still, go deeper. good god, the undercurrents of us… can't you feel them? how do we ever get to the root of why we do as we do?

i can't begin to articulate this…whatever... just yet (it's still forming. it's still a fetus of a notion assuming shape in my melon.), but i really feel like a large part of my cosmic purpose (maybe everyone's, because i don't think i'm unique) is connection. find and form. people, ideas, institutions, movements. there is no them, no there, no other. only us, here, this. nothing is separate. everything is related. everything. i cannot think of a single exception. and the fetus of a notion in my melon is whispering that there is a critical lesson in this connectivity-- an evolutionary, revolutionary lesson. to embrace it (universal connectivity) would be to permanently and profoundly change the way we "do business." we would be kinder, healthier, smarter, sexier, more efficient, awesomer, handsomer, and peacefuller.

foolish that i'm trying to write a paragraph about it. i don't even know what it is. but it makes me want to be very quiet. like if i could get quiet enough, i would understand connectivity as more than just a concept, and then i would live better. i do so want to understand. and i do so want us to be better.

sometimes things just feel too big for words. 

i'm babbling because i'm tired, and i am in a hotel room, and i feel full of ideas bigger than my available vocabulary. sometimes i feel so full of ideas that i worry i will never get them all out, and they will die with me and be lost to the cosmos. 

i am also full of spinach enchiladas. they were delicious. good job, Chapala. 

pull it together, p

It's Pull It Together, P Day at my house. I'm not sure 1 day is enough, so thankfully tomorrow is Sunday. My shiz scatters to the 4 winds so easily, so regularly. I don't know where anything is. C is patient, but last night, while cursing everything solid as I hunted for lost things (things I needed in order to complete a project I should have finished at least 4 months ago), I realized my mess had kind of buried him, too. I don't understand exactly how my piles get so disorderly; they just do. I am some kind of human hurricane, bumbling bermuda triangle, two-legged typhoon. I am, from time-to-time, a natural disaster. At least I'm nice. And I make good cheesecake.

Surprisingly, I'm really good at setting up organizational systems. I even like doing it. I have color-coded files at work and a "directory" indicating what goes in each color. I don't actually put anything in those files, however. The intended contents are dog-earred and busting out of off-colored folders on my desk.

Yesterday I had lunch with Katie MacDaddy (who isn't "MacDaddy" anymore, but I can't let go), and we discussed our dual personalities -- that likely everyone has multiple personalities; it only becomes disorderly if they start talking with accents and making important life decisions. For instance, I house both an introvert and an extrovert. Sometimes my introvert wakes up and finds that the extrovert has abandoned our person in the middle of a party. That's bad news. Sometimes my anal retentive librarian takes over the wheel to discover that the Bohemian Baton Twirler has filled all the labeled accordion files with leaves and doodles during her shift.

I see a cobweb by the TV. Gross.

And so, today, on local (very local) Pull It Together, P Day I will dig through my crap and organize my crap, and find my lost crap, and throw out some old crap, and crap like that, so that C will not be tempted to go out and find himself a nice, tidy librarian.

pants.

I'm in Sioux City. I had raw onions on my salad tonight. Bad choice. I wish I'd brought a book; I feel mindless--like my brain is drooling on itself and short-wiring. I brought work, but I don't have the focus to do it. I don't work well in the evenings. Intellectual fatigue. At a certain point every day, I'm done, all finished, zeroed out. I get up at 4:30 a.m. to run around and lift things in repetitive patterns; I expire early. Is this age? I remember "all-nighters" when I was 20. I don't think I could pull an all-nighter if I tried. I would need invasive surgery to keep my eyes open that long.

I dressed badly today. Some days I'd like a redo. Relatedly, I lost a pair of pants. Not today. I don't know when I lost them--a couple of months ago, maybe. I also don't know how I lost them. I don't take my pants off in strange places, so where could they possibly be? I could see losing a pair of socks. But pants? No. Pants seem like something you'd keep track of.

This morning I was running late, and I pulled up to a red light behind another car. I was turning right. The car in front of me was not turning right. It was a long light, and I noticed how mad I was that the Toyota in front of me was not turning right. Who goes straight at red lights? Ridiculous. We could have been moving by then--right on red, let's go! Then, I thought, that's a pretty funny thing to be mad about. So I let it go. Then the light turned green, and the Toyota…. turned right.

starchy pellets

I'm hungry.
The house is a pit.
Bills are stacked.
I hate the tedium of paying them (stamps and envelopes and logging into accounts and looking up amounts and… gah, just shoot me right in the soul.)
And my guitar needs restringing.
(Because I busted my very first string, which made me feel kind of badass until I told C and he made fun of me for thinking that was badass.)
The printer has stopped communicating with my laptop again.
I don't know why these 2 fuss so much.
And I need to trim and install some fancy new insoles for my running shoes.
Because my back and knees hurt.
I don't know why they fuss so much, either.
The dishwasher is busted.
I've been eating horribly.
And my workout routine is all zoinked up.
My body is complaining (and getting mushy).
More travel this week.
And the week after.
And then that weekend.
And the weekend after that one.
And then it's Christmas.
I'll like that.
I love cookies and cider.
Also, my family is awesome.
C and I haven't seen much of each other since our vacation in October.
Last night we went to dinner.
It felt like a first date, like we needed to reintroduce ourselves and talk about the weather.
Until C started talking about music and music theory and how much he loves guitar.
I like it when C talks about music.
It wakes up his inner-mystic.
Inner-mystics are my favorites (My guess is we all have one. But we get embarrassed when they do the talking.).
I think if we let our inner-mystics steer our big dumb ships, we'd be happier.
We'd be weirder.
But we'd be happier.

I just listed a lot of complaints.
My complaints always make me feel self-conscious and apologetic, because they are about such small things.
My grievances are small potatoes.
Tiny potatoes.
They are basically little birdseed-sized starchy pellets.
It's ridiculous to have them.
But I do.
I feel tired and rushed.
I was built for leisure.
I know this about myself--that I was designed for solitary wandering and musing.
So when I don't have time to solitarily wander and muse, my soul gets sick.
This week, someone gave me an assignment, and I almost cried.
Literally.
I had to quick smile and make a joke so that I wouldn't cry.
I cry when I feel stress-bally.
It's embarrassing.
I cried at the gym once.
It was pretty lame.

undershorts and mortar attacks: a veteran's story

My dad, Paul, enlisted in the Army in the late 60s. He led convoys through Vietnam. I think that's right. I know "muleskinner" and "48th Transport" are significant to him, although I don't know exactly what they mean. My dad didn't talk about his experiences in Vietnam until much later. I don't remember hearing stories until high school in the late 80s. (Maybe he talked about it sooner, and I just wasn't paying attention, but I don't think so.). Here is one of my favorite stories:

Fresh on the ground, my dad was awoken early one morning to sirens for an air attack. He heard doors slamming and men yelling and running. He yelled to his hooch buddy, a guy named John from California, "John! Here we go!" John's response: "Zzzzzzzzzzzz."

My dad grabbed his flak jacket and a steel pot, crawled into the fetal position under the bunk, and wondered what in the hell he was doing there. John slept peacefully until the all clear signal. When the rest returned, my dad learned that no, running to the bunker was NOT just a suggestion; and no, hiding under your bunk in your underpants was NOT okay. "From that point on, I ran like hell."

They were bombed again two days later while my dad was standing in his skivvies at the piss tube. The sirens went off, and he cleared the 40 yards between the tube and the bunker in approximately 3 steps. "I didn't have to pee anymore. I'll tell you that," he said.

For the rest of his time in Vietnam it would seem that "every time they tried to blow us up, I was in my skivvies." I forgot to ask if John ever stopped sleeping through mortar attacks.

I love my dad a lot. I've said this before about my parents--the strangeness of suddenly realizing they are actual PEOPLE who existed before me, who experienced things outside of parenting me. It's strange to think of my dad as some scrawny young 20-something hiding from bombs under a bunk bed. Charming almost, if I am allowed to say something so naive about war. It's strange to know there is so much I don't know about his time there and how that's shaped his life. He has said on more than one occasion that he can't not notice small things--trained to pick out inconsistencies in others dress or speech or behavior. I know he feels deep respect for the new generation of veterans.

He was in the car listening to the radio in 1990 when they announced F-15s taking off for Saudi Arabia at the start of Desert Storm. "The entire car filled with the smell of cordite. All I could smell was cordite. It was the weirdest experience, and it never happened again."

Solitaire Games

Today I am reminded of two games I like to play with myself:

1) The Hibernator

…wherein, I hover over several literal and figurative delete buttons. Delete facebook. Delete blog. Delete emails 1-76. Delete my social calendar. Delete ambitions. Delete plans. Tell everyone, "Nevermind." Delete delete delete. Reduce my life to: gym, work, home, self, sleep.

It happens around the same time--this time--every year. Whether it's cooling temperatures or overwhelmption, I don't know, but something triggers my introversion, and I find myself blushing from overexposure and lunging for caves.

2) Do I Have a Right To?

…wherein, I fall into various levels of sour mood-itis and then debate whether or not I have a right to. Do I have a right to feel irritable when people in the world are starving? Do I have a right to get mad about relatively small bits when the world is riddled with gross civil injustice? Do I have a right to feel blue when I have no overt reason? Do I have a right to feel tired and overwhelmed at my desk job when bomb squads are tiptoeing around the desert?

Because I really like the idea of accepting the full gamut of humanity, which includes sour moods, irritation, fatigue, and bouts of overwhelmption. I don't want to put any more pressure on myself to be perfect than I would on any other person. I really hate the word "should." I really do. I think it's a loaded and destructive word, and I don't like it. Every time I hear it--including from my own mouth--I wince.

But I also really like the idea of always trying to be better, to relax, to keep a healthy sense of priorities, to identify my weaknesses and work to improve. How much improvement is enough? How much improvement is an unrealistic demand for perfection and repression?

Scorekeeping for this game is particularly difficult.

Dear Mr. Branstad,

I feel kind of crummy today. And disappointed. I feel disappointed for a few reasons:

a. I don't like the way our election turned out.
b. I don't like how hard it is to be compassionate and kind when in disagreement.
c. I don't like it when I fail to be compassionate and kind when I disagree.

I want to explain all the reasons for (a), but I get very… desperate… about it, and then it triggers my breathing problem. So instead, I will just write a letter.

Dear Mr. Branstad (or do I call you "Governor?" You aren't yet. But you were once, already.),

I don't care what political party you claim. I really don't. I hope that you don't really care what political party you claim, either. That is, I hope you adopt ideas and policies because they make sense and are respectful to all of humankind. I just have a few requests, and I hope you will consider them, because I'm not very special or unique, and I think a lot of people might have similar requests.

1. Please make decisions that preserve the dignity of all people. We don't always make the best decisions when left to our own devices. Please use government wisely to this end.

2. Please examine our systems and ensure that they foster environments of kindness and compassion and respect.

3. Please recognize the serious and widespread damage that fragmentation and separation cause. And then please look for the ways we subtly fragment and separate. Sometimes we don't even notice we're doing it.

4. Please work to unify and integrate. (See #3.)

5. Please examine and take care of your soul, because your soul is connected to my soul and the souls of everyone I know and everyone I don't know, through an intricate web of spiritual energy.

6. Please don't think I'm weird for saying that.

7. Please recognize how physical health impacts mental and emotional health and how all three impact the practical workings of our society (For example, my neighbors could use better nutrition and resources to prevent chronic illnesses that stress them out, trigger mental illness, diminish their commitment to education, reduce their income earning capacity, and push them to beat on their kids who in turn learn how to beat on their own kids and get stressed out and trigger mental illness and diminish… You get the idea.)

8. When you examine the state employee systems of discipline, performance, and layoffs, please recognize those of us who work really hard and do a good job, and then protect us. Please don't let people who've been skating by on the minimum bump me out of my job just because they've been kept around longer.

9. Please love and respect Mama Earth. She's my mama, too, and I adore her. She works so hard for us.

10. Please continue to recognize my gay friends' rights to love, cherish, honor, respect, and support one another through the covenant of marriage. (Please see requests #1-5.)

11. Please value arts and creativity in school so that our kids will grow up to be good, kind, heartfelt people.

12. Please take care of those judges who lost their jobs. They worked hard and did what they thought was right, just like a lot of us who work hard and do what we think is right. They are good people.

13. Please be a visionary. And, if you aren't a visionary, please keep one close by.

Thank you for considering these requests. Even though I didn't vote for you, I really want you to do a good job. I think if you do a good job, the world might be better. I really want the world to be better.

Good luck, and let me know if you need some help.

Sincerely,
Patresa

tangled woods

I just signed up for nanowrimo. It starts tomorrow. I have no idea why I've done this, except that it is fall, and this is just what I do in the fall. Write 50,000 words of a novel between November 1 and November 30. I'm currently overwhelmed--at work and in life, have 500 travel days planned for November (which is an incredible feat for a month with only 30 days), and at least 3 other "self-improvement projects" in the stalls. Oh, P. What are you doing, dear?

Today is the first day of my "structured free time" time budget. I have already regressed, which is hard to do when you haven't actually progressed yet.

Breakfast? Yes.
Clean? No.
Gym? No.

Lunch is on the schedule for 12. I guess I could catch up then.

I have no idea what I'm writing about. I have a vision of an upscale cul-de-sac of houses cut into peaceful woods and neighbors full of weird stories. But I don't know who the neighbors are or what their stories are. And I have "Tanglewood" because when we lived in North Carolina, I remember a big park and swimming at the Tanglewood pool.

I started nano last year and didn't finish. I'm not sure I ever even made it to 20,000 words. I don't remember what I was writing about, either. what was last year? Did last year happen? Hm. This is going to bug me.

2007 = Apples for Alessandra
2008 = The Chili King
and…
2009 =

Poop.

2009 = Sideways Study of a Brown Bag.

I just had to hunt for it. You know what's crazy? I have absolutely no recollection of writing this! None. I think that's the goofy thing about writing--that it really feels like it comes from somewhere else. Like I get possessed and I just become some kind of lame, weak, typing body bag. Creepy. Writing is creepy. I have no idea why I want to do it at all.

Other things that are creepy: chickens. Last night I put on a chicken suit and went to a halloween party and then to Chrispy's band's halloween gig. By the time I got to the gig, I was really tired, and my guts hurt because I've been eating toxic waste for days. I made it to about midnight, and then was just kind of full of the noise and the peacock pageantry of it all, so I took my leave. Sometimes I feel kind of bad for C, like he got stuck with a crappy spouse. Poor C and his lame chicken suit wife.

It's 11:10. Maybe I can squeeze in a nap before lunch.

land of time and plenty.

On vacation, I decided that I would be a lot happier if I parceled out my free time with scheduled activities. "I'm sorry, Mother, I cannot come for a visit, as I am to read a book of my choice from 6:00 pm to 7:15 pm and then loll about humming from 7:15-7:30 and then use the toilet before penning deeply philosophical thoughts from 7:38 pm to 9:00 pm bed time."

I decided to call it a time budget.

This time budget is also part of my COFFEE project--a collaborative blog experiment with 9 other women in which we've all chosen projects that scare or challenge us in some way, and we blog about the process of completing that task. That's here. http://coffeeisanacronym.blogspot.com (It's still developing, and we're in the first round of posts, which is a learning process. So please forgive our rough seams.) My project is to sing and play guitar in front of strangers. This requires regular guitar practice to minimize the suckage. Regular guitar practice requires time. … Time budget.

Other things I don't make time for: writing (the real kind), reading (non work related materials), writing letters (that require stamps), playing the piano (no parenthetical notation required), art projects (that require paint or pastels or cutting and pasting), and meditation (so I can stop this anxious breathing thing that has returned. 1000 times a day I am telling myself, "You're fine. You can breathe. Just breathe. Relax. There. Breath. See?" I will need to write this into my time budget. "Drop your shoulders. Breathe.")

I think it's ironic that I made this decision while laying on the beach in Florida. But what I know of myself is that if I have a lot of free time, I will waste a lot of free time. And I also think I know that sometimes to free yourself from something requires a plan, and sometimes plans look like schedules. So if I am going to free myself from shameful stagnancy, I need a plan.

I started the time budget 2 days ago, got overwhelmed, and quit (How to Be a Smashing Success by Patresa Hartman).

Yesterday, I picked it up and got to work. I learned: I can't do everything. I wake up at 4:30 a.m. to go to the gym 4 of 5 work mornings. By the time I get home from work at 5:15, I have about 4 hours to work with. There must be eating and canine carousing and packing gym bags for the next day and husband time and picking up after myself and using the toilet. I end up with about 1.5 hours to write, read, play guitar, meditate, and paint. It's so depressingly confining, and I just can't figure how to make this work. My head feels like it's going to explode.

It's a problem with proportions.

On vacation, I was in a place I loved, doing things that made my soul happy, and I felt so… right, so lined up. I thought of a million ways I could make this life my reality. I could run away to work with sea turtles. I could live like a bum. I could write sonnets for cash. Over dinner, C looked at me and said, "We need to make sure we do this at least once every other year." And it occurred to me how completely absurd that was. For 5 days every 2 years do something you really love? What?!

Likewise, I am looking at my time budget… For 1.5 hours every 24 hours, do something you really love! Huh?!

Obviously, I know the secret is to FIND what you love, MAKE what you love, BRING what you love, to the other 22.5 hours and to the other 725 days. And I'm usually pretty good at doing that. I have a great job that allows a surprising amount of creativity (even if the environment is kind of soul sucking). But when you look at it in really cold terms, we (most of us) are seriously f'd up with how we have constructed our lives. Totally out of proportion and off-balance. No wonder there's so much chronic illness and depression. How could we expect to be healthy?

And furthermore, how do we have time to keep reproducing? Holy cow. I'm looking at my time budget and thinking there is not possibly enough time for babies. I simply cannot have children with this kind of schedule. Who has time for babies?

and then life just kind of keeps going...

The funniest thing about the Day After Little P's Big Marathon was that it was very Monday-ish. Sunday was such an amazing, self-defining, liberating, mind-blowing day, and then…

I got up Monday morning, hobbled around a bit, and went to work. A few people knew about the marathon and congratulated me. But then I had two meetings, including a phone conference, wherein I felt stupid. I fixed a mistake I made, making two more mistakes in the process. I fixed those. Apologized. Fielded irritable phone calls and emails (inspired by my mistakes). Felt bloodeebloodeebloo. Took myself to Palmer's Deli for lunch. Got cursed at in the parking lot by a man in an SUV who was trying to back up while I was trying to forward in. And felt generally confused and space cadet-y the rest of the day.

A thousand times I wanted to say, "Hey! But… But… I ran a marathon yesterday! I ran a marathon! Aren't you going to cheer for me and offer me jelly beans? I'm 628! I'm 628! Don't you recognize me?!"

Maybe I should have worn my medal. And my race bib.

But I guess this is the way of things: Life just kind of keeps going. Victory, defeat, grief, elation, whatever… Days open and close at regular 24 hour intervals, and you don't really have a choice but to jump back in the stream and flow again. I actually felt kind of sad yesterday. Maybe that seems ridiculous, but it's true. Yesterday I felt very blue.

Before the marathon, I ran the Dam to Dam 20K at the end of May. I started training for that in March. I've recorded my training schedule in my planner--penciled in the miles, highlighted and checked them off when complete, made notes about how it went. So, since March my weeks are filled with these notes.  Then, October 17 it said MARATHON in red pen! After that…. blank.

I was looking forward to training being over, being able to just work out however my body feels like working out. I was looking forward to letting go of the constant preoccupation with what I was eating and drinking, how late I was staying up the night before a run. I was looking forward to picking up with my weight training (I really like muscles. I do.). But now, here I am, and… eh.

March to October is a long time to be so constantly (CONSTANTLY) focused on one task. Now the task is over, and I feel a little lost.

Sunday, after the race, I felt scattered, like I couldn't focus very well on conversations. I felt that way yesterday, too. But I just chalked it up to fatigue. I wonder if it's actually because the task is complete and my brain is trying to retrain itself, find another focal point. Hm. And, I don't mean to be whiney. I'm just examining this strange emotion that I hadn't expected to feel. That's all.

Humans. We are strange machinery. We are.

Today I ran a marathon.

I am so very tired. And so very humbled. And so very inspired and grateful and overwhelmed (still, even now, many hours later.). My shins are splinting. My left toenail is seriously angry and will secede from the toe union (sandal season is over = blessing). My ankles are swollen (Is this normal?). Both of them. My time did not break any records, but it was faster than I anticipated. I thought I'd come in around 5:30. But instead, I squeaked in under 5. (4:58:23) I felt joyful and positive. I felt strong. Powerful even. (Achey, for sure. My feet were really under duress the last 10 miles.) But, I never hit the wall. I NEVER HIT THE WALL! Amazing. I was really worried about that wall. I walked through most of the water stations, but not all, and those were the only times I walked (which should tell you what a slow runner I am). I am immensely shocked at and proud of this.

But these are just the details. It was such an enormous experience. Overwhelming. Spiritual. Humbling. Inspiring. Everything. I don't know how to sum this up, but I would very much like to.

Today I ran a marathon, a kinda sorta totally foolish endeavor for someone like me--an aging basketball player with a digestive disease who is better built for log-hauling (I am very sturdy for slow, plodding power-hauls.  I would work well on a farm. Not quite so sturdy for quick prancing pony parades.).

I am writing this while my husband rubs my legs, so I'll start there--with a man who will rub my legs and stand around waiting to hand me granola bars and take my picture as I jog by. He is phenomenal; I am blessed; and that's super cool. I need to remember this when he puts my favorite coffee mug in the bowl cabinet where I can't find it. (Priorities, P. Priorities!)

My parents are such wonderful people and so very good at being parents. I don't know how else to say that. When I stop and take stock of my life, I feel so overwhelmed and so PROFOUNDLY undeserving in so many ways. How should one person have so much? What do I do to earn this? I have so much paying forward to do. So much. My parents made a sign. They smiled and cheered and high fived and encouraged and "So proud of you'd" and fed. They fed me. They fed me french fries and a chicken parmesan sandwich, which was exactly and precisely what I craved for my belly. I love my parents.

And friends! Oh, my friends! Encouragement from afar, encouragement from the street corner. Amazing. Becky in her cute hat with super-dog, Charlie. Sarah running barefoot in her church clothes to talk and support and keep company! Tim with gummy bears. Katie and Jane (9 months pregnant. Hello!) with a sign and snacks and total awesomeness. I am constantly reminded of my serious gaps in friendship skills. No, really, I mean that. I have very serious and embarrassing gaps. I know this about myself. My friend, Cassie, had a baby 4 months ago, and I still haven't sent her gift (I do not have an explanation for this. I also haven't mailed Julie's, who was born around the same time.), and yet she sends me a gift certificate to a spa. A spa! Again, I feel so tiny. I am a student. I'm so sorry I'm such a slow learner. I am a friendship kindergartner.

Strangers, too. That's overwhelming. Beautiful kind people who have no idea who I am who point and smile and say, "Looking good, 628! Keep it up!" They handed me kleenex (genius!) and water and gatorade and jelly beans. I have never said "Thank you" so much in my entire life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A billion times, I must have said it. So many generous people! How could I ever be a pessimist or believe the world is nothing but greed and destruction? It isn't! Oh, it so isn't. Goodness everywhere, if you're willing to fling yourself into it (or plod slowly but certainly through it). The world is so bright and kind and loving today. I want to remember this when I walk through the gloomy stuff.

I want to remember all of this, really. I don't want this to just be that thing I did on October Whenever and thought was cool and then forgot about. I want to apply this. It seems like I'm supposed to. Why else would a person torture herself for months and months only to check it off a list and never revisit?

The finish line was some kind of amazing. I really do not have words for that. None at all. Parents at mile 25. Katie and Jane at 25.4. Chris and my dog, Kaya, at 26. Walls of cheering strangers clanging bells and cheering and clapping. The announcer calling my name. Medal. Pictures. Snacks. Congratulations from people I didn't know. Fatigue and Joy and Pride and Teeny Itty Bitty Cosmic Tininess.

I think the marathon reminded me I am cosmically small but capable of incredible might. I'd say that's worth a toenail.

A Dozen Items of Note Regarding the Gym at 5:00 A.M.

If you're looking for deep thoughts today: Keep looking, Sucker. I just want to talk about the gym.

A Dozen Items of Note Regarding the Gym at 5:00 a.m.

1. Sometimes, if I have not slept well, I never actually wake up. No amount of pushing or pulling or jogging or squatting will revive me. I get lost in small places. I stand in front of the free weight rack and can't remember what I was doing. I lay down to crunch abs and count ceiling tiles and calculate area instead. I love to calculate area. It's compulsive.

2. Sometimes, the "functional training" area is full, and I need floor space. I configure myself strangely, using a sliver in the corner and turned the wrong direction. Then, 3 minutes later the area clears, and I am left there in my strange configuration, and I want to shout to the people over there on the ellipticals: "Hey, this made sense about 3 minutes ago!" (That happened this morning.)

3. I don't like hamstring curls. They make the backs of my knees feel weird and snappy.

4. I like it when people put things back where they found them. I like this a lot. I wish it happened consistently. I don't understand why it doesn't. I mean, you're here, and you appear to be here to work, which means you're probably not lazy. If you've just done 3 sets of 12 reps, what's the big hairy deal about extending the effort to put it away? Sheesh.

5. I like that there is no meat market silliness at 5 a.m. It is an entirely different scene at 5 p.m. I do not like that scene. I do not like it at all.

6. I like it when there are lots of treadmills available and new arrivals leave at least 1 empty treadmill between me and them. Sometimes, when there are lot and lots of treadmills available and someone takes the one RIGHT NEXT TO ME, I want to turn and say, "Hey, really? Why?" And I would mean it. I would really and truly want an explanation.

7. I like it when romantically linked men and women work out separately even though they came together. I don't know exactly why it bothers me to see romantically linked men and women trying to be weight bench partners, but it does. I roll my eyes a lot at these people, which isn't very nice, but it's 5 a.m..

8. I dislike the stationary bike. I think I would like it a little better if I could dip the seat back just a bit. I always feel like I'm crotch-sliding down hill.

9. I have declared a locker in the locker room as MINE. It isn't mine. I don't pay money for it. My name isn't on it. But when someone puts their crap in it, I feel genuinely put-out. How dare they? Don't they know who I am? Rookies.

10. I don't like grunting. Some people--and men are the worst--grunt and it sounds orgasmic, and that totally creeps me out. Dude, seriously. Keep it in the bedroom.

11. I check myself out in the mirror. It's hard not to. There are mirrors all over the damn place. Sometimes I see myself and I think, "Huh, I really thought I looked better than this." But the mirrors in the group fitness room--which I commandeer on mornings there are no classes--are extremely flattering.

12. On days when I skip the gym, I have a hard time getting ready for work at home. I forget what to do. I don't know what I've washed and what I've not washed. I can't find things. I am usually late to work.

That is all I have to say today.

don't call me.

I did not have a rough week, but I did have an "oh, I don't care for items 1, 2, and 3" week. That's fine. You can't care for everything. If you cared for everything, you'd explode with care, which is messy.

I don't care for things that make me feel dumb. Do you?

Sometimes I have to do things that remind me of the limits of my intelligence and the weird ways I identify. Sometimes I have to go to meetings about things like government distribution policies. Sometimes I have to sit in on webinars about federal standards of measurement. Sometimes I get invited to these things as an "expert," and then I show up in my pink checkered apron skirt and plaid shoes with my mountain hair and everyone else is in brown pants and leather loafers with combed hair, and they think I've arrived by mistake, and then I say "No" and show them my invite, and so they ask me expert questions and I have to say, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about," and then it is confirmed that no, really, you are here by mistake. Except the the truth is that, sure I knew what they were talking about, I just didn't understand HOW they were talking about it.

So I wander back to my doodle pad and markers dragging my flowered kite and feeling very stupid and young and very different.

In actuality: I'm not stupid, I'm not as young as a child, and I'm not different. My conceptual tools are just mismatched to the situation sometimes, and I like to paint with all the colors of the wind (just like Vanessa What's Her Face and Pocahontas).

So I take walks, and I wonder if it's just me and my projections and paranoia. Maybe nobody else really gives a crap that I use different lingo and wear pink checkered apron skirts and don't comb my hair. Maybe that's just stuff, and I'm the one with the preoccupation, not them. They're nice, smart, cool people. Why am I itemizing their leather loafers as if somehow that defines them? Why do I assume that leather loafers means someone could not possibly understand the magical complexity of my character? That's so dumb it's painful.

Because if genomes are any indication, people who wear loafers and people who wear plaid shoes, are 99.9% identical. Bankers and Bohemian Baton Twirlers are practically identical twins. So in any case in which we feel unique or different or extraordinary is a total illusion/delusion. We are same same same. But why am I even talking about shoes at all?

Sometimes we misinterpret what we see and accidentally fragment and reduce. That's not very productive, and I think on a larger scale it makes the world weird and dysfunctional, because we never bother to see beyond our own perception (which is never complete). I have this powerful need to be seen and accepted fully, for all parts. (I should do a better job of seeing and accepting others fully, for all parts.) And sometimes I am told that I am flighty and ridiculous.  Sometimes I hear others refer to me as liberal, bleeding heart, hippie. And although I have no problem with flight, ridiculousness, liberal thought, bleeding hearts, or hippies, I always feel a little... crooked, as if my entire being has been squeezed into a toothpaste tube, and then I want to stop and explain so that some flimsy and strange version of myself isn't out floating around the universe. For instance:

I am not spontaneous and free-spirited. I am anxious. The unknown makes me nervous. I'm scared of making an imperfect plan. So, when I plan I get nervous and overwhelmed (because it has to be PERFECT!) and then I procrastinate and run out of time and finally am forced to be "spontaneous" (and very very imperfect).

I don't know how to choose a political party. I do know how to choose what makes the most sense to me. I don't understand abortion protests anymore than I understand war protests. I'm not "pro" either, but I do believe in starting where you are, which sometimes happens to be in the middle of very real crises. I think Peace and Life For All are beautiful ideas, but until we fully and universally commit to honoring and loving and granting equal rights to the person next door, Anti-Abortion and Anti-War don't seem like very practical options.

Atheism doesn't make much sense to me. Neither does dogma.

I believe in ghosts and aliens and spirit guides and God and reincarnation and Heavens and Hells and Nirvanas and evil and joy and religion and shamanism and that the earth has a soul, because it all seems logical based on what I know or think I know of energy, electrical currents, neurocircuitry, and human psychology. It's also based on my instinct. I don't think this makes me wishy washy.

I do not, however, believe in unicorns or flying horses or fairies or elves or "magic" in the literal sense.

I think instinct works best when it partners with research and that research works best when it partners with instinct. And I think everything can be proven in one way or another, and it's just what we accept as "proof" that varies.

I think capital punishment is scary and sad and that the margin of error is dangerous. But I cannot think of a better option given our current circumstances. I think we should love and forgive each other the best we can but also recognize that the earth as we know it has limited capacity and our current system requires money and that housing people in prisons (which are full) costs money and that money runs out and that there are a lot a lot a lot of people having babies, so we're not going to run out of people any time soon. And if reincarnation works out okay, maybe both the killer and the killee will get another chance at being cool. I think it makes better sense to work on the context in which crime happens.

I think we should meditate and pray and work hard and be nice and not worry too much about what we call ourselves.

That is to say, I really like it when I can show up to the party as-is, and not worry about whether I'm same or different or accepted or rejected or mislabeled or smart or stupid or belonging or misplaced. I like it when people don't call me flighty or ridiculous and don't assume I'm any more liberal than I am conservative or any more hippie than non-hippie, because it makes me feel really weird about my identity. Sputtery. And I really like it when I have the sense to not do it to others.

[This really long post is brought to you by a week of incredible weather and lunch time walks that make my brain full. Congratulations if you made it through the whole thing.]

crazy space station satellite

The weather has been awesome. I hope it is still awesome in one week and 3 days while I am running 26.2 miles.

Over lunch today, I walked to the river. I turned off my ipod, took off my shoes, and stared all pensive Victorian heroine like at the water. Then I realized the Des Moines River is really pretty stanky looking. I'm not sure how I would describe the color of this river, but I imagine there are a lot of dirty gym socks at the bottom.

Then I looked at the skyline, and it wasn't really all that attractive. Two cranes by the YMCA, and half of the buildings were capped by crazy space station satellite antennas.

People jogged over the bridge wearing sweat bands.

It seemed kind of bizarre that I found it relaxing and clarifying -- like finding God in a burnt cheese sandwich covered with cat hair. I hope this doesn't make me a pessimist.

Other important notes:

My dog is peeing on things. It's my fault, and I feel horrible. She has allergies. They were bad enough that I let the vet give her prednisone even though I really really really didn't like it. The prednisone has made her incontinent. Is there anything worse? She peed on my chair, on the couch, on the new carpet, in the basement.

The thing about prednisone is you can't just stop taking it. You have to taper, gradually. So once you start... well, tough nuggets. If you stop, it screws up a bunch of other things. Poor Kaya just has to keep peeing on herself until my mistake has flushed itself out.

I think I'm too tired to write any more important notes. The Apprentice is on. I didn't mean to watch it. It makes me nervous. I don't understand money contests, so I hope it's about more than sharp suits and slick hair (but I have my doubts).

it sounded like this: GYAAHH.

I've been buzzy this week. I think the alleged crack in my foot (formerly believed stress fracture to fibula, but 2nd opinion -- formed by a lot of mashing of thumbs into the side of my foot -- suggested general irritation to cuboid, if you like to keep track of such things), triggered a zippy nerve to my brain. Or maybe it's just the pronounced focus on Body that plants me a little more firmly within it (Did that sentence make sense? I can't tell.). Or maybe it's the 1.5 week break from running and all that stupid stationary biking (I do not like the stationary bike. I do not.). Whatever the cause, I feel like a stricken bell ringing from the inside.

I ran 3 miles around the neighborhood yesterday, ankle wrap, knee wrap, it felt fine, more or less. Caught a couple of minor zingers, depending on how I landed, but as long as I kept my stride short and pace slow (no problem there), fine fine fine all around. It made me happy.

Although, today I was supposed to participate in the NAMI walk. I was feeling selfish and protective of my bones, so I am sitting in my red chair instead. I might actually be able to pull off this marathon business, afterall. It won't be graceful or pretty. It won't be fast or impressive. But it will be complete and hopefully upright. Yes, my only goal, really, at this point, is to finish upright.

While I was doing my modest 3 yesterday, I was having a conversation with myself about why in hell's bells I want to continue doing something that has created such unmistakable physical havoc. My knees are goofed. My ankles are goofed. My feet are goofed. It has to be more than pride. I mean, sure, I'm prideful, but I think, if I may say so, I have a better handle on ego than most (which I may have just disproven by writing that sentence). I think it's a transition thing. My life, as I know it, has been in kind of this monkey morph state. I see the next phase coming and want to make sure I've sent this one out with a gong. I am petrified at thought of looking back on my life and seeing one long blendy, indistinguishable watermark.

But back to the buzzy stricken bell bit -- I feel like when I'm buzzy, I notice more. Things jump out at peculiar angles, and I feel like everything is purposeful. Thursday at lunch, I took the bus downtown to meet C for lunch. Two strapping young White men got on the bus with me. They were dressed nicely -- dress pants and button down shirts with ties. They were wearing name tags, but I didn't pay attention to what they said. They sat at the front of the bus by the front door. I sat at the back, by the back door.

We rode a few blocks, and a young Black woman was taking a long time to board. I realized she was carrying: 1) a baby strapped to her chest, 2) another baby in a car seat, 3) a giant stroller, 4) a large trash bag full of clothes, and 5) a purse. She couldn't get it all. The two young men just sat and watched. They did nothing. I got up, walked to the front of the bus, and carried her stroller and her laundry bag. Then went back to my seat thinking, "Hey, doofuses! Wake up! This is what you do when someone needs help." Then, I decided to give them some credit. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they didn't notice. Maybe they didn't realize what was happening until I had already gotten up to help. Maybe they were feeling bad right now. Maybe I'd shamed them.

But then, a few blocks later, we stopped, and the woman with the babies and the bags got up and started to repeat the process in reverse to exit the bus. And... STILL.. the young, healthy men did NOTHING. They just sat and watched. So again, I got up, walked to the front, carried her car seat and clothes bag down to the sidewalk and then got back on the bus. I looked at the young men more closely this time. Their name tags: "Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." I think I actually made a noise, and I think it sounded like this: GYAAHH. I wanted to shake them, "Hey! You just missed your mission! I assure you, Jesus would not have just sat and watched someone struggling."

And then I spent the rest of the bus ride debating hypocrisy and irony and youth and dogma and perfection. On one hand, if you're going to wander around spreading the word of Jesus Christ, if you're actually going to wear his name on your chest, you better take that very seriously, roll up your sleeves, and represent. Because when you don't, it makes people like me have a really hard time with affiliation.

On the other hand, I'm as big a hypocrite as they come, and really have no room to judge anybody else, even if they do happen to be wearing the name Jesus Chris on their chests. In fact, we're all hypocrites. It's nearly impossible not to be. Because no matter our affiliations and our espousals, we're still humans, which means we're still fallible. And we have to forgive our imperfections. If we want people to forgive us ours, we have to be willing to forgive them theirs. And crap like that.

And then I thought about how I think some religious communities really do a disservice with the confines they enforce, the Perfect Living they insist is possible and required. And that I think a lot of soul & world damage comes from the act of constantly rubbing our natural grains the wrong way (Which reminds me of training for marathons and fracturing bones through repetitive force.). So when we insist on rigid rules and narrow interpretations of what's "natural" and "right," we do way more damage than good. We actually chip away at our souls. Improve what needs improving; forgive what needs forgiving; find and create love and joy and peace and service as often as you can, that's my motto (which I frequently and inadvertently violate, which takes me back to being a horrible hypocrite. Please forgive me.).

This post is like a long, gravel road, winding through space.

indestructible superhuman machinery

My brain is on fire! Fire!

And my fibula is not. My fibula is not on fire!

This stress fracture has just never seemed right. I can walk, jump, skip, climb, jog... as long as I'm not wearing shoes that touch my ankle. I don't have a limp. I don't wince when I ascend or descend stairs. How can that be a stress fracture? I didn't get it. And it was annoying the crap out of me to feel so completely fine except when I strapped on my running shoes. I couldn't shake the idea that it was just bruising from breaking in my new shoes.

So today I went to a sports medicine doc, and he made me squat on one leg, squat on 2 legs, flex, and point, and bend, and twist, and nothing hurt. Nothing. The only time anything hurt was when he was jamming his thumb into the outside of my foot. (Incidentally, it is unfortunate that the only way to assess pain is to cause it. I wonder how many times Dr. Sports Medicine has been kicked in the face while assessing possible stress fractures.)

At the end he shrugged and said, "Eh, maybe it's a stress fracture, maybe it's just some bone irritation. You don't seem to be too uncomfortable."

Right! I said. Exactly! This is exactly my point!

So he sent me home with a complicated ankle wrap and a disclaimer: If it's a stress fracture, this ankle wrap isn't going to matter. And he left me with the wishy washy: Try an easy run around the block. See how it feels. Decide if you want to keep training.

I follow directions. I strapped on the ankle wrap and ran around the neighborhood, and I felt GREAT! Which means: I'm in! At least, I'm not out. I mean, yes, there's a difference between 5 minutes around the block and 5 hours around the city, but... the dream is alive. I'm going to keep training.

You know what else is awesome? That I swear I had a sign on my way to the doctor. Only, I didn't recognize it as a sign until about an hour ago.

On the way to the doctor, I watched a young man cross the street. He was wearing an ankle monitor. He looked like someone I would have dated once upon a time. I laughed when I imagined someone spotting an ex- wearing an ankle monitor. And then I wince-laughed that that wasn't an entirely far-fetched scenario for me--that in fact, many years ago, I did see an old romantic interest featured in a "stupid criminals" blurb (no joke). And just last year saw very public news of another old flame's bad decision. And if other previous romantic interests have remained out of jail, it's probably only by luck.

And then I thought about my history of making very very bad romantic decisions, and, in my head, I designed a Bad Decision ankle monitor that would set off an alarm any time you were about to do something stupid. Hypothetically, for instance, declaring romantic partnership with anyone with known and multiple substance abuse issues, or someone with overt holes in his ethical character, would signal the arrival of Dumb Decision Police who would intervene.

And then I went to the doctor, and he gave me an ankle wrap, and it worked, and it was awesome, and I'm going to keep training for the marathon, and as long as the ankle wrap holds through greater distances, I will run a marathon on October 17, and it will be super terrific. I didn't think of the ankle monitor story again until Mark and Bridget said, "Hey, that looks like an ankle monitor."

And so it does. And I hope it's a sign that this is the fix (Universe says, "Hey, Patresa! You need to wrap something around your ankle!") and not a sign that this is the dumb decision that will signal Dumb Decision Police ("Hey, Patresa! Don't be dumb!"). And I'm not going to worry about the 1.5 weeks of training lost and the fact that I never ran the last 2 long runs. I am not going to worry about that at all, because I am obviously some kind of indestructible superhuman machinery.

sorry, body.

I had plans to run the Des Moines marathon on October 17, 2010. My body has made an alternate plan -- my left ankle, specifically (although my knees conspired). Stress fracture. Ankle. Treatment = Stop running.

I know enough not to say a bunch of dumb, irrational crap like: Three months of blood, sweat, and tears, DOWN THE DRAIN! That's just ridiculous. I've gotten all kinds of cool stuff from the process. Plenty of pay-off. Mostly: I'm in good shape; and I've discovered some grit and fortitude I didn't know I had. That's reassuring. I suppose I could channel it toward a different project, something that doesn't crush my bones.

I guess the thing that makes me disappointed is that I don't get that ___________. Whatever. That, completion. Resolution. I don't get to see the final product. I really wanted to know that I set a goal, designed a plan, worked hard for an extended period of time, survived setbacks, and then reached the goal. I know that I *can* do that... I just don't have a very good record with such things. I live a lot of my life in theory, and I suppose that gets a little old. Now, I can *theoretically* run a marathon just like I can *theoretically* do a lot of things.

I think that's all I have to say about that. I'm going to drink wine and eat chocolate chips straight from the bag for the remainder of the evening. I am going to be happy for all the marathon runners who survived training. And I will volunteer for the race and will yell helpful things to the runners (like, "Watch your step.") and smile supportively and hand them cups of delicious water (I refuse to participate in Gu, however. That stuff is disgusting.).

Over and out. 10-4. Word.

solitary particles

I think that maybe if I write some words, my legs won't hurt so much. Maybe that's what builds up in my muscles, in the ligaments around my knees, in the crooks of my ankle joints--words. Maybe all the running shakes them loose, and they bonk around in my frame making messes and swelling things up. Maybe I'm running to distract myself from writing. Maybe I write to distract myself from participating. Maybe it's just my big hairy ego that gives such a big dumb crap about running a marathon. Maybe my big hairy ego is a big stupid asshole.

Maybe I haven't been stretching enough. Maybe I got overly confident about the glucosamine and the Zyflamend. Maybe I thought my knees were a-double-okay, and so I stopped rolling out my IT bands. Maybe over-confidence makes you all stiff and sore and slow and dumb. Maybe confidence is best balanced with a little healthy fear and trembling. Maybe people should stop giving insecurity such a bad rap.

Lonely horrible miserable business today's run was. So cold and wet and spitty. What I think I have loved so much about running, even the long, tough ones, is the liberation of flinging myself into the universe. Shoes and music, white lines, yellow lines, cars carrying strangers. I don't have to talk to anybody, don't have to constantly examine the things that come out of my mouth or the banners that loop through my head. Don't have to read anybody else, except drivers and whether or not they're going to barrel over me. (I have learned that there are people right here in my city who truly do not care whether I live or die. I'm sure I must have known this before, but when SUVs push you into ditches, it's surprising.)

But what I think is peculiarly true about the things we love the most is that they are the most delicate. These are the things with the greatest potential to shift and turn, to become the things that hurt us the most. Maybe that's not right. Maybe they are as they are, and we are the ones who shift and turn. Maybe that's not quite right, either. Maybe the things we love most are as colored squares on a Rubic's cube, and it's a simple case of circumstantial rearrangement. The blue used to be next to yellow, then the cube turned, and the blue--still blue--sidled up next to red.

I'm not sure that makes sense.

At any rate, today, liberation, me, my shoes, yellow lines, white lines, strangers in cars, felt vulnerable and menacing. Something in my left ankle exploded. My knees felt stiff. My hands went numb (Note to self: Gloves.). Every layer of clothing was soaked and chilled. I think when the body hurts, it's easy to forget it's being driven by soul, and that soul is hard-wired to everyone and everything else's soul. That is to say, I think sometimes when everything hurts, it gets much too easy to feel like a solitary particle vulnerable to the elements. And I don't like that very much, if you want to know the truth.

electric wriggling ball of stuff

I found a thick and intimidating spider scrambling across the carpet to the wall next to my red readingwritingandthinking chair today. I believe in the souls of things, that they are sacred and important, and we should do our very best to not tread all over them. ...But spiders flip my shiz. Snakes are cool. Spiders, not so much. (Actually, I do think spiders are kind of cool, but in the same way poltergeists, are. I don't want either one of them in my living room.) (I don't really want snakes in my living room, either, but.. I don't know where I'm going with this.)

At any rate, I saw the spider, spontaneously revisited my vow to go gently on the earth and do my very best to not tread all over souls, then grabbed a shoe, said, "Thankyouforyourserviceandpleasegoodjourneytoyoursoul," and I killed it dead. Squished it and its soul.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Spider. One day I will cancel my fear of spiders and live with you harmoniously. But not today. Today I will kill you.

Next, I will write 3 paragraphs about my skill for camouflage:

In this first paragraph, I will review something that happened to me very very (very) frequently when I taught at the community college, which is the same thing that happened to me very very (very) frequently when I worked at the gym. I had taught at the college for 3 years, and in that 3rd year, teachers I had been seeing in lounges and hallways, some I'd already been introduced to, often approached and re-introduced themselves and welcomed me to the staff. I'd been at the gym almost a full year when members often commented, "Oh, you're new." And I would smile and say, "Nope, [first name], I've been here a while."

Now, in the second paragraph, I will tell you a story about what happened last week in the cafeteria of my current job, where I have worked for 1 year and 3 months. The man who makes the deli sandwiches, L, to whom I have said hello at least 137 times, and who has made me at least a dozen tuna salad sandwiches, said, "Oh, hi. What's your name? You're new here."

Finally, in this paragraph, I will note as I have many times in the past, that I would make an excellent spy, because I apparently blend very well with my surroundings. I mean, sure, if it happens once, maybe even twice, you could argue that people are thick-meloned and don't pay attention. But if it happens 10 times, by 10 different people, you really ought to take a long gander in a mirror just to make sure you are actually present in your body, and that it wasn't snatched and replaced with a stranger's.

Now that I've talked about that, I guess I'll just ramble on about how creative I've been the past few weeks, and like I've really squeaked open a hidden pantry. Songs are coming out. A new tale-telling venture is hatching (which I will keep secret until I am sure I won't self-sabotage, as that is kind of my way of things -- to self-sabotage, a very special trick I've been perfecting since I was about 22.). A cool work project is lighting my noggin on fire. In passes such as these I get a vision of myself, and I like it. I'm buoyed by it. There is even some spirit of creation in the marathon training, which I can't quite put my finger on.

At the exact same time, there's a little undercurrent of Holy Shittedness. And I think I have a better understanding of why I keep the reins so tight. Every time I nudge the door open, all this stuff, this exciting, electric, wriggling ball of stuff, starts barreling toward the light. Although I know it's good, and it's liberating, and it's as it ought, it's alarming. So I gasp and kick shut. Typhoons just aren't sustainable.

Mr. Ebu-Pants is laying across my legs. I feel his motor running, and I love this cat. His is my favorite feline soul.

today is cool, and so are you.

Things about today that were cool:

I wore a print with a plaid and shiny sneaks. I don't know what it is about dressing oddly that makes me so joyful, but it does. (Sometimes I accidentally dress badly, and that doesn't make me joyful. There's a difference between odd that works and odd that doesn't and is just uncomfortable.)

I had a really nice run in crisp, morning air, and my knees didn't hurt very much, and I didn't hack loogies all over Des Moines, and I was a little faster than usual. It was kind of zen-y, and I love the poop out of that.

I ran the last mile doing laps around a high school track while a marching band was practicing on the football field in the middle. It kind of made me feel like I was 16 again, which actually was not cool. Frankly, I really sucked at being 16. I sucked at being all ages that ended with "-teen," and really did not like it at all. So while running my laps and listening to bells and drums and tubas, I thought about the business of age. I thought about how I would like to take some cosmic white-out and just cover up my life from about age 13-26. Twenty-six, I think, is when I started to pull it together and stopped doing so many asinine, self-destructive things. I wouldn't want to erase it; I know enough to understand those years contributed to who I've become (and I kind of like her and her imperfections, even though they can be aggravating from time to time-- This realization is the cool part.).

I wore the racer back tank that shows off my tattoo. Here, this is vanity. Or is it? I don't know. But on days when people can see the carolina chickadee on my back, I feel a little bit cooler (even though it was only to the gym).

I walked to the river and sat on the Simon Estes Amphitheater stage staring at the water and the bridges and the people and the cars and the sky and the trees over lunch. I haven't done that in a while -- just sat with myself without music or the company of a person or task. I really love what my brain does when I unlock the box and let it fly around and touch stuff. I love the observations I make, and the questions that form, and the superfly peace I feel when I'm swimmy.

I discovered VIA from Starbucks, which has eliminated my need to drink the ass-coffee brewed up in the office during my afternoon lull. I do not think this needs further narrative.

I spent the entire day working on a project that excites me. It's a presentation I'm giving at our HIV conference about how to reconcile right and left brain thinking to make data analysis more than just a bunch of math. And I'm using Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's book, My Stroke of Insight, as a foundation. And I have to tell you that I love this human, what she gives, the sense she makes, and the thousand different colors that explode in my melon when I read her words or listen to her talk:

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princess pride does the opposite

I have this working theory about ego and behavior -- that any time ego is telling you to do something, you should do the exact opposite of that thing.

For instance, sometimes Princess Pride gets an injury. Sometimes the injury is deliberate: Person A, who makes all kinds of decisions based on ego and doesn't give a poop, insults and condescends and degrades. Sometimes the injury is accidental: Person B, who is awesome in 1,000 different ways, injures Princess simply by being awesome. (In which case, it isn't actually Person B who injured Princess, it was Princess's alter-ego, Insecurity, who turned and injured from the inside.)

At any rate, I have had fleeting moments of clarity when Princess received an injury, and I made myself do the exact opposite of my most immediate urge -- most immediate urge being to injure back -- to insult, degrade, belittle; and the exact opposite being -- to compliment Person A or B on the accomplishment in question.

In those moments in which Princess has suffered injury, and I have done the exact opposite of my most immediate urge, I have experienced a 100% rate of improved fuzzy bunny feelings. 100%. I cannot think of a single time that I implemented this scientifically-approved strategy without positive effect/affect.

On the flip side, I can think of MANY times in which I did NOT implement this strategy, that Princess was injured, and I followed my most immediate urges. In these cases, I have experienced a nearly 100% rate of worsened feelings. Maybe not immediately, but always eventually. I say "nearly 100%" because there are so many times, I'm sure I've lost track and cannot report this statistical analysis with a spreadsheet or a color-coded bar graph.

Now, here is where I reiterate this other working theory that I have that says there is only one system, one cycle, in existence, and it repeats itself in varying forms and at varying scales. That is, our personal, biological systems and cycles mirror systems in forests and oceans and politics and tupperware production and cat mating rituals and how televisions work. Therefore, if we get to know one system (to me, it makes sense to start with self. But you could also start by studying trees, if you'd prefer.), we will have enough understanding to apply elsewhere.

After careful self ego Princess Pride injury do the opposite study, I have concluded that we could replicate this on a global scale. There are matters of national security, of course, that must be handled. But I think even that could be handled compassionately. Sadly, it would really only work if everyone did it. And I'm not that delusional. But, it really really makes me love the living crap out of ideas like Stephanie's:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=140441369332304

I think September 11 is as good a day as any to not let Princess Pride run the show. That's kind of what caused the mess in the first place.

(in my humble opinion)

twisty bendy sleeping psyche, continued

More about this dreaming business. I really think dreams are important. The brain is an enormously mysterious electric planet, and how it sorts and problem solves is fascinating to me. I think at any given moment your brain is pulling in... I don't know... thousands?... of sensory messages: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and [I would argue...] energy. But you're only conscious of about 7 at a time (Which is very very very necessary. Can you imagine what would happen to you if you were conscious of all 5,689 sensory messages in the space of a second? You would be crazy. Actually, I think that's kind of what "crazy" is. The inability to filter sensory messages, in whatever form.). What does it do with the rest? What happens to your thoughts when you "lose" them? Do they evaporate and cease to exist? Of course not. Most have had the experience of trying to remember the name of someone or something, and you just can't can't can't, so you give up. And then two days later, you are mowing the grass or tying your shoe, and then BOOM, that name just pops up. The question never went anywhere; it just holed up in a study carrel in your brain and researched while you were showering and cooking dinner and having conversations and watching TV and farting in your sleep. That's the magical, layered, deep sea, asteroid field brain.

My favorite theory about dreams is that they have 3 tiers. The top tier is just the brain sorting through all the sensory images it took in that day. Both the things you were conscious of, and the things you weren't. It flips through them, sorts them, puts them into categories, rearranges your schemas, unclogs your short-term memory so it has space to store all of tomorrow's sensory messages.

The 2nd tier is where your brain sorts through your conscious thoughts. All the thoughts that sprinted through your brain that day. All the things you said to yourself or said to others. Where do those go? What questions did you ask? What conscious problems have you been trying to solve? What are you fretting about on a conscious level?

And then the murky bottom tier, my very favorite, where your repressed thoughts and worries and nasty little issues go to hang out in the dark. The answers to your most troubling questions wait, buried. But here they are. I think this is the meat. And I think what the brain does--or what God does--is use the cleverly crafted functions of all three tiers of our brains to help us answer our own questions and find our own right paths. No rules are altered to send messages. Everything is governed by its own natural laws; you just have to figure out what they are and then interpret within the parameters.

Sometimes when I go to bed, I ask a question (I think I've said this before.). I don't always know who I'm asking. And I'm not sure it's important the name I give. God? Spirit Guides? My brain? Because if nothing else, it brings the question into my conscious mind, and then I go to sleep and let my brain start sorting things out in its found-art kind of way (whether it's doing this all by itself, or God sets it to motion, or Spirit Guides are leading... I don't know.). I did that a couple of months ago and then dreamed of old dogs nudging me down dark paths and a dinosaur stomping on my house. Last night, thinking about this week of crazy dreams, I asked, "What do I need?" And I got Night 5:

Night 5:

Part 1: K, close friend from high school, disappeared. She just packed up and left her family, and no one knew where she was. The rest of that crew of high school friends were all a'twitter, and we couldn't agree on whether this was: a) worrisome (i.e., She left because she went bonkers, and we had to find her and get her help.); or b) awesome (i.e., K, a snappy soul who is better suited to glittery dance skirts than navy blue pant suits, I've always thought, left because she finally wriggled free of all the wrong things.). (NOTE: Dear high school friends who know who K is: please don't read too much into that. K has a lovely family, and I don't think she is stuck under all the wrong things. K likely represents something else entirely in my dream. I'm not much of a literalist even when I'm awake. End of note.)

Part 2: I'm at work, and my boss has a shower in his office. (What the hell?) I am wrapped in a towel and sitting at his desk waiting for him to leave so I can take a shower (It's remarkable to me how things like this are not strange at all while dreaming.). His desk is backed so close to the wall that there is very little room. I look down and see that I am sitting in thick layers of filth -- trash, dirt, debris. It's awful. Hideous. I am pushing it around with my foot, trying to find the floor. I see there is a vacuum next to me, so I start cleaning up the garbage. Then, I uncover some hardened dog poop. And my boss and I try to figure out how dog poop got into his office.

So apparently, I may or may not need to disappear (it might make me sadly bonkers, or it might make me wriggly), and I need to clean dog crap out of my boss's office.

Last night was Night 6. I didn't ask any questions. It's been a long week, and I was exhausted. My streak of BIZARRE DREAMs may have ended, because, the only thing I remember was less of a dream and more of one image on loop in my mind -- resizing rows and columns of spreadsheets. And that is very very real, I'm afraid.

too much sodium

Dreams decidedly dark this week. Disturbing. Started innocently enough,

Night 1: A party. A trainer I know from the gym sits at the head of a long table, pulls out a guitar, and begins to expertly play and sing a song I wrote many years ago about a troubled father-son relationship. Presses me to perform, to take the guitar and finish the song. Everyone is watching, insisting. I refuse. They just keep pestering and staring and pounding the table.

Night 2: And I am driving Chrispy to a house in Cedar Rapids. We arrive, and I suddenly realize I am dropping him off for a date with CM, a woman I went to high school with who became an opera singer. They have fallen in love. Chrispy is europhic. CM is smug. Her mother speaks an exotic language. I plead and scream and thrash around the house. They don't care. They just keep giggling and pawing at each other. Later, after their date, CM chases me down on a dark street and taunts me, teases me about taking my husband. Bystanders think this is my fault and that I have somehow victimized this sweet and lovely opera singer. They snarl at me and try to defend her.

Night 3: My family has gathered in our old dining room in Ft. Scott (This is one of the most frequent places I dream about, which I think is weird. What is it about that dining room?). It is lined with plexiglas, and a crowd of young boys begins to throw scrap boards with nails. They throw bricks. They charge the plexiglas, and it shatters but doesn't break. They are killing each other, leaving each other in bloody heaps on the ground outside the window. Then it's over. The survivors come inside, and they have nowhere to go. We have to educate them. One young boy has dreadlocks and stares at me, sad and silent, dirty and bleeding.

Night 4: I am hiding in an oddly configured bathroom stall with an unknown baby in a stroller. I am trying to get as far away from people as I can. I look up and realize there are more people, that the stalls are arranged like seats on a bus, and they are all looking at me. Staring. There is a man on the opposite end of the stalls, and he looks familiar, but I can't place him, and it makes me anxious. A woman named Vickie invites me to a ceremony, and I am suspicious.

Tonight will be Night 5. I am going to line my body with pillows and white sage smudge the bed. I might be insane. Regardless, I am very sleepy.

sacred shoe ceremony

I got new running shoes Friday. This morning I hosted the Changing of the Shoe Ceremony. It was touching. I set old and new side by side on the living room floor by the couch. I thanked old for her service, for her unwavering dedication to supporting my rickety frame and keeping rocks out of my toes, for staying relentlessly tied. I apologized for all the water she had to take in at Dam to Dam and during a few other training runs that turned into monsoons. I apologized for not always airing her out properly and letting her get smelly. I apologized for how painfully slow I am. If she had landed on the feet of a faster runner, she would not have to work nearly as long.

Old looked tired. She was ready to retire, to pasture, to transition to easy walking-the-dog shoes, and occasional mowing and gardening shoes. (Chris will scoff at that, because I only mow about once every 2 years.)

New was very eager and crisp, like a young hunting dog or a kindergartner with a new dress.

And then I gave them a few moments alone so Old could advise New on my short, slow, lumbering stride and my tricky knees. I'm sure Old also had some advice about: persevering through the storm of vulgarities I unleash with some regularity around mile 13; enduring cat calls when I choose to run through our neighborhood; and I'm sure Old also impressed upon New the importance of not giggling when I perform the chant about being a powerful warrior horse.

Then I ran 17 miles. (I was only supposed to run 16, but I got my route wrong and accidentally ran 17, which is probably the first and last time I will ever utter those words. Accidentally ran 17. That's ridiculous.)

like walking through wedding tulle

I was trapped in the far corner of a very small room listening to a webinar about confidentiality policies and infectious disease reporting. The woman next to me was the perpetual frowny face who reeks of bad soul health (I don't work with her; I just see her around all the time.)--icky energy, and she was eating Burger King onion rings with electric orange cheese sauce, and they smelled horrible. It was an unpleasant way to spend two hours.

I believe that bodies are temples that house spirits, that they are divine vehicles for exploration and soul growth, and that our bodies are connected, that our inner pulsings feed a godly environment and a universal energy, and that our bodies filter our experiences with the "external" world and with each other... which makes listening to an explanation of laws that protect your right to keep your disease a solitary experience very weird.

It's not that I think every warbling of our physical form should be published on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. That's not what I'm saying at all. I just think it's one of those cases where we have to create laws to accommodate our garbled sociology. And that it's kind of like making a law that prohibits the merging of water molecules in a public fountain.

Jill Bolte Taylor. I kept thinking of her and how our neurology, our consciousness, defines the parameters of our bodies-- our right hemispheres separate us, and our left hemispheres unite us. That we really are all part of one big universal body, it's only a brain trick that convinces us we're separate.

So as Frowny Face kept munching on her smelly onion rings, polluting her innards and, by way of godly energy feeding, everybody else, I thought, "This is too much." Some days the world feels thicker than others, like I'm walking through a giant vat of tapioca pudding and wedding tulle. It's really quite a lot to take in, and I'm not sure how I can be expected to drive a car or carry on a conversation.

until the spots stopped

I spent an unnatural amount of time trying not to pass out this morning. Bad run. It was a "back-off" week, and I may have been over-confident. 12 miles just seems silly now. 12 miles is for children and puppies. 12 miles is for heels and skirts while eating pie.

Not so much, no.

I ran 6. It was hot. My body didn't feel right. I kept having to pause in the shade and squat until the spots stopped. So I walked the rest. It took a while, so I had time to think on things.

I thought:

Music--really, when it comes to running, whatever works, you know? If you want to listen to a bunch of 90's Pantera, nobody can revoke your hippie card. Same for Britney Spears and Fergie. But if you're 36, and Miley Cyrus's The Climb has snuck into your iPod, you should make sure you have plenty of Grace Potter and Eminem to balance things out.

Grace Potter--Totally badass. I want to sing and write songs like that.

Foresight--Foresight is funny business. I can't look ahead 10 minutes to say, "Hey, P, if you eat these potato chips, you're going to be sick." But put an idea in my head, and I will--in an instant-- project 20 years ahead to some kind of fantastical outcome that usually includes an interview with Diane Sawyer and a Grammy. Seriously. Give me any idea. Any idea and all. And I will tell you how it leads to Diane and a Grammy.

It's All In Your Head--I hear this about running, that at a certain point, it's just a mind game. I'm on the fence on this. It seems like kind of a dumb thing to say, because it's only a mind game if your body is already on board. My brain is a pretty magical place, but no amount of fantasy is going to put fluid in my body when I'm dehydrated.

Phones--I wish we didn't have cell phones. I wish we could go back to phones with twirly cords mounted on the kitchen wall... and no voicemail. I really do. And letters. I want to write letters. And I want people to write letters to me. And I want them to come in the mail with a cool stamp.

Pride--I think I may have quit this marathon training business a few weeks ago if it wasn't for my personalized race bib. I registered early, so my race bib will have my first name printed in big letters. It is the thought of that lonely race bib laying unclaimed at pick-up--so sad--that makes me too proud to quit. I mean, how many PATRESAs are going to be running this thing?

Swimming--I think I would swim if I could properly execute a flip turn.

Triathlons--I think I would train for triathlons if I could properly execute a flip turn. I don't like riding bikes, but I could get over that. But swimming. No, I need flip turns. And space. I don't want all those elbows and feet in my face. And also, I don't think I like the idea of riding a bicycle with a wet butt.

Running As Life Lessons--It's too obvious. I can't bear to print it--training for the long haul, pushing beyond your limits, slowing down when your body says to, anything is possible with a plan, it's always hard at first, keep going... I know the application. I just don't (apply). But I'm pretty sure if I can yank this marathon out of my buns, I probably have a novel up there, too.