May 2011
1 post
April 2011
5 posts
A brief white whine
I am in a battle of wills with Sephora’s customer service department. Last week I placed an order online with a 15% discount coupon. The website immediately rejected my order saying “Authorization unsuccessful.” (There was of course no information about why.) I called them on Monday to ask why this happened, and they said they needed to do some more research and would call me...
“It can be argued, in fact, that getting rid of the whole idea of special gifts,...”
– Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library | The Awl
I just cracked open “The Pale King” last night. Let’s see how long it takes to get through, especially since I have to read a book club book in the next two weeks.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us...”
– Ira Glass, via kottke.
I can’t remember if Ira said this in the City Arts & Lecture I went to of his, or if Arielle just told me he said it, but I still find it quite true. It’s certainly why I haven’t written any fiction since my first and only creative writing class —...
I'm obsessed with this. →
Parks & Rec has climbed to the top of my list this year. Related: TomHaverfoods.com
And so April has passed as quickly as March.
Tonight Peattie is at the A’s/Giants game, and I skipped Burn and stayed home and bought plane tickets to Wisconsin for August (2011 seems to be another year in which all my vacations will be within the continental U.S.; I’m actually excited about the trips but it does make me feel guilty or envious or something when friends are going to...
March 2011
2 posts
I’ve decided I’m going to try to post things here, just randomly, just so I have some fraction of a written record of my adult life that’s not in my email. I have the problem with this blog that people have with phone calls to friends that they don’t talk to much… you put off calling them because you feel like you have to set aside a whole hour to call someone because...
January 2011
1 post
Obligatory resolutions post
…because if you don’t write it down somewhere, you get to back out of it. Nevermind that it’s already January 5. These are, naturally, in addition to those things that are always under-the-surface resolutions, like “lose 10 pounds” and “run half marathon” (which I just realized is in a month and a day, yikes!).
Take more vacation. Actually take it (no...
December 2010
1 post
TNT
Those of you who have been reading my blog know that this whole half-marathon thing is really a bee in my bonnet. I think I first started talking about doing this about two years ago, or maybe a bit earlier — I think the first half-marathon I seriously considered was in November 2008. And no one can forget the saga that was pseudo-training for the SF half this year. I bored you to death...
November 2010
1 post
Let’s go over this again, shall we? In the past few weeks I have:
left work early on multiple occasions to go home and watch baseball games
listened to baseball on the radio, voluntarily
bought the MLB At Bat app on my phone so I could keep score of a baseball game during a work retreat
skipped meals because I was so focused on baseball games
eaten zero home-cooked meals because who has...
October 2010
1 post
Wow, so.
Turns out I am a horrible blogger! I knew it had been a while, but it’s apparently been literally two full months and then some since I last posted here. Shameful.
Coincidentally, the last time I posted was just two days after the half-marathon that wasn’t. You know, the one I stopped blogging about training for back in MAY. Obviously the steep drop-off in posts was connected to the...
July 2010
1 post
WatchI don’t care if I’m in a demographic worth making fun of (former Dawson’s Creek fans), seeing Pacey Witter in a goofy shirt really made my week.
June 2010
3 posts
May 2010
5 posts
1 tag
Days 31-36
I’ve sort of fallen off the blogging game, which is fitting as I have also (sort of) fallen off the training game. By which I mean, I did not do my long run this weekend, did not run today, and may not run tomorrow. Which is not to say I’m not thinking about running or wanting to run or whatever. It’s just that running right now would be (I think) a bad idea, and I think I need...
1 tag
Day 30
I have a good and bad habit of blogging within a few hours of running. It’s good, because it captures my running-related emotions when they’re still pretty raw. But it also… captures my running-related emotions when they’re pretty raw. Take yesterday for example. Sure, I freaked out a couple times on my run, and I was hobbling around a bit afterwards yesterday, but no...
1 tag
Day 29: The slough of despond
Q: Is it wise to run 3.5 miles the day after running 5.6 miles (the most you’ve ever run in your life) with no rest in between?
A: In brief, no.
Not in brief: I asked this question myself, yesterday, when plotting out my schedule for the week. Of course I have a regular schedule, but with the switcheroo between Saturday/Sunday runs, I was reevaluating. Peattie suggested that running 3.5...
1 tag
Day 28: Back on track
I got a late start, literally, to my long run this weekend. Not only did I shift it to Sunday instead of Saturday because of plans in the East Bay, but I also didn’t make it out to the park until well after noon today. Luckily, it wasn’t too hot because of the wind; it was a pretty, sunny day.
I had been hesitant about today’s run because for one thing, Peattie wasn’t...
1 tag
Day 26: Huh.
We last left our heroine (me) plagued with aches and wondering if this was all a bust. Today, we discover that things aren’t so bad.
After my sad little run yesterday I was pretty gimpy… I was slow going down stairs and generally extremely sore. But I took some meds, and last night after a delicious dinner (more on that in a sec) I did some extra stretching. This morning I still felt...
April 2010
17 posts
1 tag
Day 25: Forcing it
After my interval training yesterday I put on both of my probably-inappropriate knee braces, in a misguided effort to pressure my legs into functioning properly. Each of the last two times I’ve adopted semi-serious running plans I’ve bought a knee brace, without asking for advice, because I am overly proud and stubborn about asking salespeople for help and looking like an idiot who...
1 tag
Days 21-24
Sunday, fittingly, is my day of rest in this running plan. This Sunday (day 21) was also a day of learning to make margaritas from scratch. And a day of not reading the “Common ratios” section on the margarita entry on Wikipedia very closely — or really at all — and instead relying on the easiest version on some other website (3:2:1, where 3 is tequila, 2 is triple sec and 1 is lime...
1 tag
Yesterday, day 20: Five miles. Barely.
Ooof.
After last Saturday’s 4.5 mile run, and after buying new running shoes on Wednesday, I was feeling pretty prepared for this one.
The funny thing about training, especially when you’re like me and haven’t ever really run very far, is how it all starts to feel very precise. Or, at least, you try to make things precise, which is a losing battle. I’ve mapped out all...
Watchyessss
1 tag
Day 18: I should be running right now
It’s not too late! I won’t be leaving the office for another hour. I’m not particularly jazzed about doing work nor am I slammed with emails forcing me to do work. I should be running 3.5 miles. I’m not.
This is the first post of its kind (hopefully the last): the brutally honest procrastination post. I can’t even believe I’m writing it, because, well, if I...
1 tag
Day 17, or: interval training is a bitch
(Why yes, I did go back and count up my training days in order to have a counter. Seventeen seems much more impressive than the 11 days I actually did what I was supposed to do, two of which are “rest.”)
I’m making baby steps. Not in running; in admitting to people that I am training for a half-marathon. A week ago, despite having paid for the damn thing, I was still telling...
1 tag
After my long run on Saturday, I found myself occasionally thinking about how I’d run more than I intended that day, how it didn’t feel so bad at the end of it, how now I knew I could run four-and-change miles that five miles this coming weekend wasn’t a big deal, etc. I also thought about how compared to that, the three miles I had to run two of the days this week* was no...
1 tag
"Long run"
Yesterday I ran my first “long run” of the training. This marked the first time I’ve ever run in Golden Gate Park, the first time I’ve run more than four miles (accident!), the second time I’ve hit the four mile mark at all, the maybe third time I’ve ever run outside in San Francisco and the first time I’ve been late to brunch as a result of exercise....
1 tag
Today I decided to do some kind of interval-ly training. My speed running outdoors yesterday, 5.7 or so, was higher than I’ve been running indoors on the treadmill (usually 5 or 5.5mph). So clearly I am capable of running slightly faster than I think. I am still pretty darn slow, though, so some sort of interval/sprint training needs to happen and sprints terrify me. So fake intervals it...
1 tag
So. I have done it, and signed up for a half marathon, which apparently I must do now in just about 14 weeks. I was tooootttalllly on my training schedule* for the first three days (two runs, one Burn class), and then I missed a day and was grumpy, was back on schedule for a day by which I mean I went to personal training (part of my schedule, guys), and then utterly blew it for the weekend. In my...
A productive night. First, I finally did my taxes, so no longer will I cringe during Turbo Tax commercials (for the next three days). While I did that, I finally, finally watched “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” the movie I’ve had out from Netflix for… um… nine months? (Wow, that was longer than even I expected.) It was not worth the approximately $80 rental fee....
Ramparts and Rampage on Main Street →
Welcome back to our inland island. What, haven’t been this way before? Don’t worry, even if you’re new it seems familiar, a shade of an America you may know.
Word from the north, and I am envious and many other things I can’t identify.
1 tag
13.1
For more than a year now (and in fact inching closer to two), I’ve been tossing about the idea of running a half marathon. The most I’ve ever run in one go is four miles (once, on a treadmill), and I consider myself (correctly, I think) one of the worst runners evar. I mean, I run approximately 5 mph, which is much more like a jog than a run (in other words, I run a TWELVE MINUTE...
March 2010
4 posts
On mommy-blogging, etc.
We all know I’m a sucker for information. My Google Reader shares are always in the 1000+ range, I buy way too many books because I think I want to or should read them, I clip recipe after recipe from magazines even though I rarely cook, I feel guilty when I haven’t read my whole Twitter feed, I feel compelled to read Twilight or see Avatar just because I think I should know...
BURN
You have to say it like that: BURN, as though it were in all caps, even though its official logo has it in lowercase (it’s trendy and female like that). Yes. So BURN is the group exercise class I’ve been attending for a month or so. I always want to append adjectives to the phrase “group exercise class”, because it is an exercise class that is called BURN and markets itself...
Will someone please develop some kind of alert system for airport bookstores that reminds me not to purchase Sunset magazine anywhere except in San Francisco? I bought one in LAX and it wasn’t even the SoCal edition, it was the Southwest edition, which you’d think includes Los Angeles area, but for some reason seemed to only cover Arizona and New Mexico. Helpful gardening tips,...
February 2010
2 posts
“she, my amazing mother with whom everyone fell in love, went out there and...”
– The Official Community of Rufus Wainwright
finally read this (thanks kim) — rufus wainwright’s post on his mother’s death. this last bit just did it for me.
“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where...
January 2010
6 posts
This is what I would like to be able to say about this year. Or something like it.
“Lois Lowry, an author of books for children and a two-time winner of the Newbery...”
– The Book Club With Just One Member - NYTimes.com
Lois, I feel you.
(I am most definitely a blend of public/private reader. It is certainly true that the books I love best are ones I read alone. I’m tempted to apply causation here, and suggest that I love them better because I read them...
“However, even in an ideal future, self-promotion will be a skill that produces...”
– A Rant About Women « Clay Shirky
All of this feels apt of late.
Cliche post about the New Year
Yeah, yeah. I feel like an idiot posting about New Year’s resolutions, but I’m doing it anyway. For one thing, if you don’t publish your list of resolutions somewhere — and it just malingers in your Gmail drafts where you wrote it in the first place — it doesn’t count. You can just discard that draft as soon as the first resolution is broken, and it’s like it never...