Giddy up, we're homeward bound

Went out for a run tonight without my mp3 player. Usually I have a song with a decent beat stuck in my head anyway, so it's not a problem. Not so tonight. So I thought of my standby song. It's a song I learned back in preschool about a...carriage ride. Trust me, it makes no sense. But the song isn't my point this evening.

Back when I was in seventh grade, I decided to join the cross country team. Probably because my friends were doing it. It certainly wasn't because I was any good. If I got tired, I stopped and walked, which happened every 400 meters or so. Though that might not have been a bad thing. My running style was more of a hop than a forward stride--I actually walked faster than I ran.

The Saturday before our first race, my mom took me out to the park to go through the course. As we went, she offered suggestions for how to get through the race, including singing this song in my head as I ran. We sang it together as I huffed and puffed along, shaking seed pods to the beat.

But like I said, it's not about the song. It's about the love. I didn't learn anything about endurance running that day. But I learned I was important to my mom. And every week when I talk to her, I know I still am. So happy Mother's Day, Momma. I love you.

Things that made me laugh tonight

I went for a walk around Balboa Island tonight to try out the new camera and to just get out of the house. For an island that isn't very big, there's sure a lot of crazy stuff there.






I've also created a new blog to show off some of my pictures. Brownie points to anyone who gets the title.

And finally, proof that this camera is magic: it even takes good pictures of me.

Thank goodness it's the weekend

So this was another long week. I had to bust out the blueberry juice and classical music again...and it was only Tuesday. But Friday dawned with the promise of good things.

My mood was almost squelched by an idiotic semi driver who decided to take up both turning lanes, making me wait through the light twice. As I was grumbling in my head about it once I finally made it to the freeway, who should I see but the same semi truck. Only now he had been pulled over by the highway patrol. Yes, even at 8:20 a.m., the universe was smiling on me.

My next good turn was the arrival of my new toy. Though this was a mixed blessing because I had a section I had to get done that day, and it's hard to focus when you feel like a kid on Christmas morning who's just been told you have to clean your room before you can open presents. I lasted until lunch.

My first attempt.

Lunch also brought Sprinkles cupcakes "for all of your hard work." Ignoring the hard workout at the gym that its consumption would require, I ate an entire red velvet cupcake. A sugar coma ensued. The coma was furthered by the chair massage later that afternoon (also "because you've been working so hard"...I think they know the whole office is starting to go crazy). She spent the whole time trying to unknot my shoulders. With more time, she could have succeeded.

The rest of the weekend was fabulous as well. I got a trip to Atomic to feel both attractive and incompetent (someday I will learn the lindy hop). I also got to hug Mickey at the happiest place on earth (seriously, it's not possible to walk down Main Street without grinning). And today I heard some excellent talks on faith, hope, and charity, and our musical number actually went quite well, considering we only started practicing yesterday.

Monday might actually be bearable.

I just want you to know who I am

So I've been thinking recently of how my emotional state is often reflected in the music I listen to at any given time. There was the summer after I broke up with my first boyfriend where I listened to six or seven Dashboard Confessional songs nonstop (mostly because that was all we had ripped to our work computer, but also because they fit my mood). The next break up is associated with Norah Jones and Good Charlotte. And the happiness of the next crush will always be tied up with Tim McGraw. Oldies, particularly the Beach Boys, are for summer. Hymns and the Out of Africa soundtrack are for Sundays. My musical taste isn't particularly deep, but I think it represents me accurately.

My current musical phase is a new one...I seem to be stuck on the Goo Goo Dolls and classical music, alternating between "Iris" and "Moonlight Sonata." The Goo Goo Dolls makes sense; I tend towards adult alternative as a general rule. However, I have never in my life sought out classical music. Now I'm going out of my way to buy it. The CD I've listened to most in the past few weeks is a corny-looking compilation CD I picked up at Target called love:beethoven.

Because this is uncharted musical territory, I have no idea what this mood means. I'd like to pretend it's a result of some new-found maturity, but really, I think it's because I've discovered it helps me relax. For now, I'll just be content that it keeps me out of the loony bin.

These boots are made for walkin'

So I have a confession: I am a shoe girl. I remember being 14 and reading an article at the dentist's office about how Celine Dion had 500 pairs of shoes and thinking how cool that would be. My own shoe collection is far from that--I just counted 15 pairs in active rotation, with another 10 that hang out in my closet and I hardly ever wear and I really should just donate them to DI or something. But a girl has to have options. There are three things holding me back from expanding much further:

1. Space. They're already on the back of my bedroom door and in one of those hanging storage cubby things in my closet. And on the closet floor (boots do not fit in the cubbies, turns out). There's nowhere else for them to go.

2. Money. I'm ridiculously cheap. As in, if it's more than $30, it had better be the best darn pair of shoes ever.

3. Size. I wear a size 10. This wouldn't be so bad if I were a bit taller (my sister managed to stop at a 9 and she's an inch or so taller. Life is not fair), but 5'6" is all I got. And not only are they huge--they're square. Like, Barney Rubble feet.

I've figured out how to solve the first two problems. But I think I'm stuck with the third. If we could only get that silly pointy-toed nonsense to go away, I might stand a chance.

Am I that transparent?

You know things are bad when the guy checking you out at Trader Joe's asks in a it-would-be-patronizing-if-he-weren't-sincere voice, "How was your day?" My answer was simple: "It's done." He told me I looked exhausted and suggested that I switch from sparkling blueberry juice to 200-proof wine. I laughed and said thanks but no thanks. He wished me a good night on my way out the door.

It was a very long week.

I figured something out this week. Being super busy does not stress me out; I think I work better under the pressure of a big deadline. Nope, what sends me over the edge is lots of little nagging deadlines. This week I was super busy and instead of being able to finish what I needed to, I had to spend the whole week dealing with all the other crap people asked for last minute. Even if I didn't have time to edit their stuff, I had to find someone else to do it, and the coordination was just as distracting. I know it's not their fault; most of the people who made these requests had no more control over their timing than I did, and all were apologetic. But after a week of that, it's no wonder I ended up spending Friday night in bed with a bowl of Mimi's corn chowder, a glass of sparkling blueberry juice, and a back covered in IcyHot to try to ease the knots. TGIF indeed.

If you are what you say you are, a superstar...

I've decided that road trips are required to have theme songs. Thanks to Ali, I haven't been able to get "Superstar" out of my head all week. If only I knew the lyrics and not just the general chorus. Guess we should have listened to it more ;)

So Pismo Beach was fantastic. Beautiful scenery, great friends, and tons of junk food. I had a really great time hanging out with people I don't hang out with often, just sitting around a fire and talking. I had never been to that area, so it was fun to see more of the coast and this crazy state I now call home (though I still don't think of myself as being from California. Not sure when that will kick in). I got my picture taken with a burrito in a hammock. We attempted to hide a goose in someone's tent, but even the "special" goose was too smart for that. We cruised the beach...literally. We piled 14 campfire-smelling people into a Mexican restaurant up the road from the campsite (some kid asked his mom where all those people were going. We told him we were going out to dinner. That got us some weird looks). I missed out on the full Pismo experience because I didn't have a bowl of clam chowder, but I don't like seafood in general, so I'm okay with that. And I still have one question:

Why do guys sleep on cement? When given the choice between dirt and cement, it seems to me that dirt would be more comfortable (not that dirt is all that great...my back is still out of sorts). But seriously...how is the picnic table a viable option for sleeping?