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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