i have been experimenting with badassery.

I don't know exactly what's been happening to me over the last couple of years, but I'm starting to... uh... speak my mind a bit more. It's the strangest thing. I don't know if it's just a general surge in confidence, or a growing awareness of mortality that makes me a little ballsier, or a fluctuation in hormones that has put a fritz in my filter, or what... But I've become less apologetic about my opinions and also: less and less tolerant of disrespectful, dismissive, and socially harmful behavior. I mean, like it's really lodged into my craw, and I can't get this seedy little bastard out.

So, I've started calling people on their shit. I've become that person!

[I would like to state that I think I accept people calling me on my shit pretty damn well, too, for the record.]

A few weeks ago, I drove around the block to confront some teenage boys who threw a snowball at my car. Not yelling. I just wanted them to explain their decision to lodge a snowball at an innocent stranger's moving vehicle. They could not. So I suggested they reconsider their choices if they can't come up with intelligent explanations for them.

I've been doing LONG overdue pushing and prodding and pointing, in my professional world. (In fact, the pushing and prodding and pointing have started to exhaust my resources, and I'm noticing physical stress responses, which is why today I am at home tending to those.)

But my biggest moment so far came Tuesday.

Due to the professional pushing and prodding and pointing, and the subsequent appearance of some physical stress responses, I have been working on "letting go of that which I cannot control." (Do I need to explain what a really f'ing difficult feat this is?) I've had this glitch in my character for as long as I can remember. And for several years now "Learn to like yoga" has been on my to-do list.

I do not like yoga.

I have a strange reaction to yoga. It makes me mad. Every time I do yoga, I just feel pissed off and annoyed. I don't understand why others thing it's so calming and centering. What is WRONG WITH ME? (Which reminds me of when I tried to like pot when I was 20, just like the rest of my hippie friends. Oh, it looked like such a grand beautiful giggly great time. Peace and love, Dude! But me? Nope. It just made me paranoid and morose.) I've blamed it before on how friggin' slow everything is. And I hate being talked to in soothing tones. Gaw, just spit it out, lady! I'm not a mother truckin' tulip! Holy J(H)esus!

But someone recently (I don't remember who, but it may have been my friend, Maggie), said, "That's probably a sign that you need to do more yoga." Yes, I suppose so. Yoga reminds me of how much anger and irritation I repress on a daily basis.

So, last weekend I bought 3 books of yoga. I don't want to go to a class. I like to do things alone. Tuesday mornings, the group fitness room at the gym is empty. So I took one of my books, grabbed a mat, and practiced some poses, went through a basic "energizing morning sequence."

Salutations to the sun, Chipper Sprite.

I finished feeling... I don't know. Not really relaxed, but my body was definitely responding to a new and much slower morning workout. I cleaned off my mat thinking this was really the start of something. I would push through the discomfort, and I would be changed. I would be Peace, incarnate.

It was too early to shower and leave. Plus, one of my books said you should wait about 30 minutes to shower, so you don't wash off, uh... Prana? I don't know. Like yoga puts you in a sleepy dream suit and if you take a shower, it'll get wet and lose all its sleepy magical dream powers. Whatever. You don't have to tell me twice.

So I hopped on a treadmill and set it to a nice, slow, relaxing 2.0. Immediately, who should enter and take the treadmill in front of me?

ROD, THE GYM PERV.

I wrote about a very nasty and horrible experience with him: HERE. Oops. Nope. It appears I deleted that post. To summarize: he took the treadmill next to me, and kept looking over at my boobs while I was running. Then when he was finished looking at my boobs, he walked behind my treadmill, stopped, and stared pointedly at my ass for an uncomfortable few seconds. It felt horrible. Diminishing. Violating. Whore-ish. And I wanted to leave immediately. Instead, I kept running and watched him for 30 minutes do the EXACT same thing to every woman there. It's WAYYYY beyond the normal checking-people-out behavior. Being checked out normally by someone at the gym doesn't bother me (because I've probably already done it to them.).

Allow me to reiterate that I have not overdramatized that experience and the absolutely sickening SICKENING energy that emanates from his presence. What he does to women at my gym is despicable and far beyond anything decent. I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

So, fresh from my "quiet the raging storm" yoga, I see F'ING ROD. He NEVER comes to the gym that early. NEVER!

I actually said, aloud to the universe, "Are you testing me? Seriously?"

Because I do think the universe needles with me, as I stated in my LAST POST about the orgasmic grunters. I think I have extra sensitive receptors when it comes to the world. And I truly have days where I feel, physically, like the entire universe is being amplified straight into my head. I can't describe it, exactly, but I know I'm not the only one who experiences it, so I'll just leave it up to you to make the connections. Relatedly, I think one of my life missions is how to reconcile the vast injustice and grotesqueness, and generally very bad and harmful energy that I soak up, and still cast light and remain peaceful.

Hence: Do yoga. Be IMMEDIATELY put to the test.

So... I'm walking. Rod is walking. Rod is craning his neck around the man next to him to watch the woman next to him. He is leaning around the front of the man to look at her boobs while she runs. He is leaning around the back of the man to watch her ass while she runs (literally, he had to bend at the knees and contort to stare very directly and blatantly at her ass). He is ogling the boobs of the women leaving spin class and heading back to the locker rooms. He is turning around to watch their asses while they enter the locker rooms.

I had enough.

I got off my treadmill and felt myself starting to tremble. I squeezed in beside his treadmill, to the front, looked up at him, pointed, and said:

"I see what you do, and it's not okay.
They way you look at women is not okay.
You've done it to me, and I see you do it to everyone else.
On the woman's part, it feels like shit to be looked at like that, and you need to stop or not come here."

He mumbled something then said, "I thought I knew her."

To that I said, "Bullshit." and walked back to the locker room. Still trembling.

I debriefed to a gym friend, and she high-fived me. Then I washed off the magical sleepy yoga dream suit (clearly mine is broken), and left for work. Within a block, I honked at a man who was texting instead of driving forward at the GREEN LIGHT in front of me. Then, I got to work and pushed and prodded and pointed.

Yes, clearly, I need to do more yoga.

Dear world, I cannot solve your problems today. Please leave a message.

person x, you are not an a-hole.

yesterday i ate 3 donuts and accidentally called someone of authority, Person X, an "a-hole." for the record, it was a total misunderstanding. i was not calling Person X an a-hole. i actually really like Person X a lot. it was a sentence in an email taken out of context, and there was over-the-shoulder reading and… dammit. i didn't call Person X an a-hole! i didn't!

the donuts: these were deliciously circular baked evidence that the universe is a snide and tricky little bastard sometimes. over the past few years, my body has been pushing me with increasing urgency to clean up and clean out my system. my physical reactions to anything processed, anything bread-y, anything sugary, anything the human body was not actually designed to consume, have become more and more UpInMyGrill. my guts, my skin, my mood, everything starts screaming. my right knee has been shitsville for weeks, and i think that's even linked to my nutrition (and possibly the 5-8 pounds i've gained since the marathon).

since Christmas, i've been shoving as much processed sugary crap into my facehole as i can. and my body is revolting. yesterday morning, after skipping the gym for the 2nd time this week (i actually skipped 3 times, but 1 time i stayed home to shovel the driveway, so i count that as a workout), i had a sit-down meeting with my body, and we agreed, "For the love of all that is holy: Pull it together, Woman!" i left for work with steel resolve. i could not continue to treat my body with disregard.

i arrived to work to find: 1 large iced cookie and 1 small bag of candy on my desk. i said to the universe, "WHAT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" i sat down and immediately put the goodies in a drawer.

i logged into my email and read, "Hey, everybody! I brought donuts for So-and-So's birthday!"

DONUTS! i can't say no to DONUTS! i shook my fist at the ceiling.

and so, on my day of renewed steel resolve to get back on the body track, i skipped the gym and ate:

• 3 donuts
• 1 iced cookie
• 2 fun-sized chocolate candy bars

and i inadvertently called someone of authority an a-hole.

this morning, i have eaten an apple. next i will eat a mostly egg-white (2 egg-whites, 1 whole egg) omelette with kale. and i will not call anybody an a-hole. not on purpose anyway.

the hot dentist.

Sugar makes me intolerant. I've been eating entirely too much lately. Leaving work for the day, I pretended not to see a woman hustling toward the elevator. I let it close. I left her behind. Sorry, Lady. I was just really tired of people. It doesn't matter how much I like you, how cool you are, how attractive you may be; at some point, I'm just really so sick of you I could barf.

I'm intolerant of elevator conversation. "Boy, sure is cold out there!"

"Sure is."

"Boy, just look at all that snow!"

"Yep. I saw it."

"Boy!"

One day last week I had the elevator to myself when a man boarded on the 2nd floor. He stood in the corner. Seriously. It was just him and me, and he stood in the corner with his nose about 1 inch from the emergency buttons. It was pretty weird, but I liked that he was as uninterested in talking to me as I was to him. Too much pretending makes me tired.

And it's Tunnel Time. Underground tunnels (Is there such a thing as an above-ground tunnel?) connect the parking lots and all the buildings. When it's snowing and bitterly cold (Boy! Can you believe this cold?!) I hike the 3 blocks in the dank underbelly of Iowa's capitol. Some people use them all year long. I don't understand this. They bring their tennies and sweat pants and hike back and forth next to the leaky water pipes and strange murals (One mural has 3 black crows flying in such a pattern, with wings at such angles, that it looks like a witch flying on a broom.). I bet there are a lot of body parts cemented in those walls. That's not pleasant.

I'm having weird dreams again. Last night I was chasing a rodent and washing the word "Studwater" off a window. I like knowing when I've popped up in someone's dream. But, I've recently decided to stop telling others when they're in my dreams. Some people really get weirded out about that. I mean, seriously. I think that's ridiculous. I can't be held responsible for what my brain does when I'm sleeping. Just because you're in my dream doesn't mean I'm going to stalk you and leave dead stuff in your yard. I don't have a room in my house lined with sliced newsprint that spells out your name 35 million times.

Or do I? Sleep with one eye open.

I went to the dentist today. I am debating whether or not to publicly confess that I hadn't been to a dentist in well over 10 years. I guess I just resolved my debate. But look: I brush; I floss; I mouthwash; I don't drink pop or weird, sugary juice drinks; I don't eat a bunch of candy. Nothing hurts. Nothing is wiggly and falling out. So, I don't think about going. If it ain't broke…

I went to Chris's dentist. He calls her the "hot dentist." She's pretty, but I wouldn't say she's "hot." Maybe she's just not my type. I don't know. But I lost a filling a while back and let it go too long, and I might need a root canal. I figure root canals probably aren't really all that bad. It's probably just something people say--something that wormed its way into our scripts. Most of our scripts are dumb. So I'm optimistic.

One question on the intake form asked, "Do you plan to keep your teeth for the rest of your life?" Seriously? What kind of question is this? I circled NO.

The hot dentist poked at my gums and scraped at my teeth, and then she took off her mask and told me that other than the missing filling, I had a healthy mouth. She said that: "You have a healthy mouth." She looked disappointed--defeated--when she said it. "You've been really lucky to get away with not going to the dentist." Like I was cheating. Like I'd skipped class all semester and then aced the final. All that flossing and brushing and no-pop-drinking. You sneaky little sneak.

I scheduled a cleaning, too. Tonight I'm drinking red wine just to get a little more bang for my buck.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

my body wants a spinach omelette

Here is what I have to say about my gardening and that giant unfinished landscape project I started 2 months ago: Nothing has its space, everything is overgrown, and it's all completely out of control.

I will also say the same about my desk.

And the kitchen.

And the bedroom.

And my government issue windowless tan cubicle.

And my brain.

And the whole f*cking world.

My right knee is out of commission, marathon training stalled for another week or so while I rehab it. And I've been so ... angry about it. Are you kidding me? I felt like everything had finally clicked, and I knew what I was doing, and I felt really confident, and I slipped into my schedule and was committed and obedient. I had a plan! I'd even composed a motivational speech I recited to myself while I ran. It was brilliant! Plus, I just finished training for the 20K, and didn't have a single problem. Not one single issue. So, I thought, what the hell is the difference? Why now?

I also believe, as I may have said a time or 1600 before, that our bodies are geniuses and they talk to us. Every sprain and strain, every bump, scar, tumor, rash, ache, and every good thing, too, is a direct and important message--not just about things like, "Hey, stop huffing paint, Dumbass!" I really think it gives us messages about how we should be living, emotionally and psychically and how we should be treating the planet and each other.

I really do think that. And it makes me feel very reverent toward my physical form, like my mind and my spirit are being ushered around life by this very kind, very old, and very wise shaman woman who doesn't speak very good English.

Believe this as I do, when I get angry about my knee, I try to replace it with gratitude. Thank you, knee, for delivering this important message (now translate and shut the hell up). I've been trying to figure out what it's telling me. Last night my knee used English (via my massage therapist), and said, "Dear sweet, dense woman: Let go let go let go."

My knee is screwed up, because my quads are insanely tight and the IT Band on the side of my leg is irritated and pulling my knee junk out of alignment. I find this remarkable, because I stretch more than anyone else I know. And really good stretches, too. I stretch like a freakin' Olympian, I'm telling you. I could win contests!

Last night I went to my massage therapist, Kate, who is awesome and a healer who sometimes says f*ck in the middle of a massage, who chops her own wood, and roofs her own house, and who looked at my new bird tattoo a few weeks ago and said, "Hm. She is very composed. Look at how tightly she's holding her feathers." I told Kate I was having problems with my knee. She said, "It's not your knee, dear."

Kate was bending me into all kinds of funky stretches. Each time she held one of my limbs, she said, in her patient, smoker's voice, which is just as comfortable dropping f-bombs as it is talking chakras, "Let it go, please. Give this to me, please. Patresa, let it go, dear." And after each direction, I would think I was letting go, I would dip my hip, exhale, sag my shoulders, make a frowny face, whatever, and each time, she would say, "You're still working, dear. Give this to me, please. Let go, dear. Stop working. Release. Stretching doesn't work if you don't let go."

I stretch, but I don't let go. I don't let go, ever. I'm pretty sure I don't even relax in my sleep. I don't even move in my sleep. I wake up in the same damn position I held when I closed my eyes the night before. Every tissue in me is a guitar string about to snap; God save me if the winds pick up.

Which brings me back to everything that is completely out of control. It's only "out of control" because I'm trying to keep it "in control." You can't be out if there's no in, you know. I think I'm supposed to just let it be it, and for my part, be okay. That's what my knee says, anyway. And the clenched bundle I carry around in my left hip.

I don't know what my body has in mind, it's really become very particular over the past year--very insistent. It's like a woman who turns 50 and starts telling people exactly what she thinks and exactly what she wants. Or like I'm being prepped for a mission (scary). Over the past year, my digestive system has eliminated 3/4 of my previous diet, and now my muscles and tissues are demanding I free my fuzzy bunny soul. Basically, my body has become really insistent on purity and freedom.

Right now, my body is insisting on a spinach omelette and some more coffee. And even though my insecure mind wants to apologize for always writing such weird, goofy posts, I'm not going to. I'm not going to apologize for always writing such weird, goofy posts. You're just going to have to deal with it. Please. Please, just deal with it.