Ok, marathon is just a little over a week away, and I still need to raise $142 to meet my goal, as an email from the Liver Foundation just reminded me... So, if you haven't donated yet, and you can give even $5 or $10, please do! Thank you to everyone who's already done so. Very, very soon I will tell you all which section of the race I'm dedicating to you. If you have a preference, tell me soon!

I'll return you to your regularly scheduled blogging soon :)

I can now write in cursive in Russian. I only know like two nouns and no verbs, but still, I've mastered the alphabet. That means I know FOUR different alphabets!

It's a bad sign when you're sitting on the train, within sight of the next stop, and the train comes to a grinding halt with the announcement: "The train has stopped due to mechanical difficulties. Your engineer will be stepping off the train for a few minutes to attempt to fix the problems." I knew seeing a cat crawling around under the platform at my stop was a bad omen. Luckily, the engineer really was able to fix the problem by crawling around on the tracks, and we were moving again shortly. I made a quick bus connection, and I was only a couple of minutes late to work. But I still never want to hear that message again.

{Internet's still down; I feel mostly better, but still dragging; more good news on the car front.}

Internet will be down until at least Saturday. RCN sucks. Maybe more on that later.

I may be *almost* better. Ran 6 miles this morning and didn't ever feel like I may pass out. I take that as a sign of improvement. 12 days. Eek.

From a (man seeking woman) ad in Craigslist today:

"My only deal breakers are vegetarians, dog owners, religious zealots, and super ambitious types."

Um, I think this guy may have some unresolved issues. That, or he just really knows what he's (not) looking for. In any case, I obviously don't qualify. If I used hardcore drugs, had served time in prison, or had a kid, I'd be fine. But since I'm an ambitious vegetarian, I'm definitely not ok.

Two pieces of good news today:

1. The car is a total loss. I know that sounds like bad news, but trust me, it's a good thing.

2. I get to hire a work study student to help me!!!! Now maybe I can do my actual job and not get bogged down filing. Woo!

My home internet connection has been down since early Thursday and is still down. I didn't have the energy over the weekend to find a coffee shop with wireless. Work is crazy today b/c it's the first day of classes (and my first day of Russian, so no lunch break). SO- if I've owed you an email for a while, it may be quite a bit longer. I tried to answer quick ones, but not sure how thorough I was. Call if anything's urgent.

And my head is still in a fog. I did not leave my apartment the entire weekend, spent much of it sleeping. I really, really thought I'd be better. But I'm not. Ran 4 miles today (first running since the race Thurs night) and felt like I would surely pass out. Still feel that way. I have less than 2 weeks to get completely healthy. So the next two weeks will be spent mostly sleeping and drinking water and eating protein. No alcohol or late nights (not a good idea when sick anyway). I'll see you all again sometime around or after Oct 10 :)

I hate feeling like I'm hungover when I'm not. Dammit, I need to get better!

One would think Nike would be capable of planning a good race, especially one with 10,000 participants. But one would be wrong. I know I've never tried to design a race course and get it past a city board. But seriously, I think I wouldn't assume that 10,000 people could fit on the bike path. And I'd try to take advantage of the gorgeous nighttime skyline. And I'd set up the bands a little better. And I sure as hell wouldn't start a race at 8pm. Sooo tired. On the upside, Scott somehow managed to get us into VIP, so we got free food (most of which I couldn't eat) and free beer (which ran out pretty quickly-I had one), and Scott got to network, which is what is was really about. But I was too tired to enjoy that much. Oh well, last road race before the Marathon. And whatever else that race may bring, I'm quite certain it will be well organized.

Anf finally, RIP little Paseo. You served me well for a time, but I can't say I'll miss you.

Since my favourite London call girl has permanently closed up shop (on her blog, not her sex career), I've found a new fun blog to visit-- Zach Braff's! You should read this blog. And watch Scrubs. And go see Garden State multiple times. And surely someone reading this knows someone who knew someone who knew Mr. Braff at NU?? (I tried the alum directory; it just lists his agency) Hmm, I may have been hanging around Scott a bit too much lately. This is a tad too reminiscent of the Ms. Bhardwaj situation...

My mom keeps calling me all freaked out because, according to some wacko radio show she's listening to, there's big-time military action going on in NE Ohio/NW Pennsylvania. Something about seeing way too many planes in the air, GPSs going offline, army trucks blocking the road??? I think they're all a little paranoid, but strange things have happened before. Anyone heard about any of this or seen evidence yourself? I'm hoping Mom, et al, are just a little paranoid.

I hate this weather. I just cannot handle highs of 80 and lows of 50. My body gets all confused, and, as I should have predicted, I'm sick. I can't take a sick day because I haven't been here six months yet, at least according to their calculations. Never mind the fact that non-union people can take sick days starting at three months...

First to answer the questions:
- My calves felt terrific. I didn't take any painkillers before or after, and I didn't even wrap my right calf. I just wore a band under my right knee. In retrospect I should've worn my brace on my right knee and the band under my left knee. That's the plan for the marathon.
- 2:08:56 (my official time) is a good for me, at least right now. It's not world record pace or anything. In comparison, the world record for a men's marathon is 2:04:55. It took me (slightly) longer than that to run a half :) At this point I'm happy to be doing anything near 10:00 miles. My average speed was about 9:51. Importantly, I was incredibly consistent. Every mile was between 9:30 and 10:00. My halfway split was 1:04:34. I didn't walk, except through water stops. So is 2:08:56 a good time? Yep.

Ok, so I spent over 2 hours running, and we all know I'm not capable of turning off my brain. I wasn't running with anyone else, and while I listened in on a few conversations, I didn't really talk to anyone else. So what did I think about? Well, running, mostly. Sad, I know.

What I'm sure most non-runners don't realize is that races are the reward. The reward for waking up at 5am, for spending your entire clothes budget on a new pair of running shoes, for not drinking on weekends so you're not too hungover to run the next day. It's all worth it when your running down Lake Shore Drive (which they closed down for your run) with spectators cheering, bands playing for you, the NU cross country women handing you water. And when you finish someone hands you a medal. And you can forever proudly wear your white cotton race shirt and exchange knowing smiles with the 6,000 other people wearing the same shirt. I'll never win a race, and in this case I didn't even set a personal record, but I love the cameraderie with total strangers, even if we didn't say a word to each other.

Best fan: guy wearing a t-shirt that said "my girlfriend can outrun me" and holding a boombox over his head that was blaring "Eye of the Tiger." Now that's a boyfriend!

13.1 miles in 2:08:58.

Will share 13.1 miles of reflection later. Right now I am going to eat a pizza and sleep for 5 hours.

Hmm, Kim's report on my car leads me to think it may again be worth significantly less than previously reported.

I did too much work today. I'm exhausted, but I'm still an hour and a half from quittin' time.

According to Kelley Blue Book my car is worth somewhere around $1750-2100. I find that amusing since apparently the loser who stole my license plate didn't think it was worth the effort to steal the whole car. Of course it's difficult to exactly quantify the value effect of such things as the huge dent in the side (a theft deterrant, in my opinion), the 3 brand new tires, the $700 stereo, or THE SPIDERS. I think that the relatively low mileage (91,000 miles in 12 years) may be the biggest factor in the car's worth. Anyway, it made me think. I mean I've just been viewing the car as a waste of my money, mostly because of insurance and registration (since I don't drive it I don't pay a whole lot for gas, tolls, or oil changes). But I never thought of the car as something that could bring in money, especially since I didn't pay for it in the first place. So now I'm flummoxed. I certainly do not want the car any longer. And selling a car seems like a huge hassle. But it's apparently worth money! I'll have to think on this one for a while.

But not right now. Work is super busy again- hooray!

Ok, I should just admit it. I'm addicted to the personals on Craigslist. Yes, I generally start out with the men seeking women, but it rarely stops there. I suppose I can justify women seeking men as scoping out the competition and women seeking women as exploring my options. I check out the missed connections, strictly platonic, casual encounters, and misc romance because you never know what might seem interesting. Why do I read the men seeking men section? No clue, but it feels exciting because you have acknowledge that you know there will be explicitly sexual content just to be allowed access. On occasion I do respond (but only to the men seeking women, at least so far). I respond with an email address I have solely for that purpose that does not reveal any personal information about me. I respond not because I am hoping to find a date or a boyfriend (or a husband as most of the women seeking men seem to want), but because the ads amuse me or intrigue me, and I want to continue the conversation. After my last disastrous attempt at finding a date through an internet personal ad, I can't imagine I would want to actually meet any of these people! Mainly I just read the ads to be entertained. I love observing the differences between the male and female approach to this service, and I truly enjoy the utter desperation apparent in some ads. But mostly I like the creative ones, the ones that jump out, maybe because they're really describing me, maybe because they're so brutally honest, maybe because they're excellently written. In any case, Craigslist always manages to brighten my day.

Favorite ad title today: "love me or the terrorists win"

Owning a car in the city sucks. I'm done with it.

A bit of advice: if you plan to run 15 miles after a full day of work at least make sure to eat properly.

The planned Sunday 6am run didn't happen, so Scott and I rescheduled to yesterday. I actually felt GREAT for the first 13 miles, but then I bonked. Funny how not eating and then burning 1000+ calories can do that to you :) Anyway, I finished. It's still a big leap from 15 to 26.2, but I'm a little more confident now. And the calf only hurt once during the run and then felt better- yay!

In other news... oh, wait, I have no other news. My life is once again solely about running. As it should be.

I realized yesterday that in the course of 7 months I will have done a 10K race, two 10-mile races, 4 half-marathons, and one full marathon-- four of those races are in the next month and a half. I'm running out of room for the t-shirts and medals. (Don't think I'm totally crazy-- I'm walking one of the half marathons with my mom in SF two weeks after the marathon-- yay for women's marathons with finisher necklaces instead of medals!)

If you're feeling really, um, bored, feel free to come out and cheer at one of the following:
Chicago Half Marathon, 9/19, 7:30am, Hyde Park
Nike Run Hit Wonder, 9/23, 8:10pm, Grant Park (includes such bands as Devo, A Flock of Seagulls, and Tone Loc!)
Chicago Marathon, 10/10, 8:00am, the whole freakin' city
Nike 26.2, 10/24, 7:00am, Golden Gate Park, SF

One month till marathon!! Yikes!!

Every once in a great, great while I start to think that maybe, just maybe, I perhaps might want to tentatively explore the remote possibility of potentially dating again. Someday. It’s not a terribly insistent thought, and it doesn’t happen often, but it’s annoyingly difficult to get out of my head once it’s there. I haven’t decided whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it’s no small relief that I may be recovering from California. On the other hand, I like to do things like go to bed at 9pm in order to wake up at 5am to run and spend whole weekends organizing my music collection and travel at the last minute without consulting anyone. Not only am I unsure how another person would fit into such schemes, I’m not even sure why I’d want someone to.

In any event I don’t have any potential suitors in mind, and I don’t know how or where to meet people. Considering the absurdly large number of strangers I see each day, it seems silly to say that I cannot meet new people. But then I never have liked talking to strangers and take great pains to avoid doing so. From the moment I set foot on the train each day until the moment I disembark, I am engrossed in a book, so much so that at times I have come dangerously close to missing my stop. At the grocery store I head straight to the self checkout line so that I do not even need speak with a checker. When I’m out running I rarely even make eye contact with other runners, much less exchange pleasantries. And I moved back to a town where I already had friends specifically so that I wouldn’t need to meet new people.

Since I am unlikely to suddenly enjoy talking to strangers and since I hate dating I think I should just stick with being single, which has worked very well for me thus far. It’s a good thing I prefer to spend as much time as possible by myself :)

Back from LA. Falling asleep at my desk, but back. I still don't miss Southern California, but I do miss my friends. Why can't everyone just move here?

Strange discovery of the day-- the iTunes database has the track info for the Asterik CD from 1999. Guess I wasn't the only person to buy it. Still waiting to figure out if the '98 Waa-Mu show is in there. My friends' high school band was not.

Must stay awake until 5. Or at least until lunch.

It's either time to get rid of the spider in my car or time to stop taking walks with Kim where she points out every spider along the way... I decided to "sleep in" until 6:30 today since I haven't been getting enough sleep this week. Bad move. Sometime around 6 I had this bizarre dream. I was driving my car in LA, talking to Chryssi on my cell phone about the spiders in my car, and I looked down and saw a massive spider right next to my foot. Its body was oval shaped and the long side was 5 inches long. Ick, ick, ick! I drove into a courtyard of some sort and jumped out of my car, when I realized that the spider had crawled into my shoe. I was trying to get my shoe off and shake out the spider. Then my dad showed up to kill the spider, but his dog--Ginger--saw the spider as a treat and started to eat it. That's when I woke up suddenly with that creepy feeling that something is crawling on you. And it hasn't gone away. I think I'd be less tired if I'd actually gotten up at 5 to run because at least then I would've woken up with an alarm and not a spider dream. Hmph.

And part 2 of "I was going to start saving money"-- I think I want an ipod. Dammit. I'm in the process of ripping my CDs, and it's pretty clear I'd need the 20GB, if not the 40. I don't have 40 gigs of music yet, but I can see it happening. The problem is that there's really no type of music that I don't like, so the collection can get pretty huge. I can't buy it yet, but it could happen soon.

Ok, off to spend money in LA.

Big Ten Contest-- Free and fun. No prizes, but you can show up your friends. Enter soon, as the season starts tomorrow.

Ok, breathing deeply, trying to think happy thoughts. Will not get frustrated. Will not hit someone. Ok, better now. (I really, really hate incompetance in the workplace. And I really really really hate bureaucracy)

A big thank you to my public radio member card who introduced me to a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant last night. Ethiopians make danm good vegetarian dishes and even better honey wine. Who knew?

My other discovery last night was that the $1.50 bar also has $7 pitchers. And while the beers are quite small, the pitchers are normal sized. Such dangerous knowledge.

For future reference, Ethiopian food late at night does not lead to a good night's sleep or a pleasant morning workout. Feeling like you might puke at any moment tends to cut short your run. Dammit, if I feel like puking I want it to be because I'm hungover (I wasn't) and not because I ate rich food.