Recently in Fly Girl Category

A little tired today, but still determined to get up and run. Albeit a short run. Went out and found a full-blown college regatta going on! The minimal signage I saw yesterday led me to believe that it was a high school or maybe a rowing club event. Nope. Colleges and universities! Pretty cool. Thought of Fly Girl the whole time (she used to row).

Managed to get up, run, check e-mail, pack, walk, eat/drink, and make it to the first panel in time. Go me!

Went to Emerging Social and Technology Trends. Got bored and walked out halfway through. Hung out at the Day Stage Cafe where they were showing trailers for films showing at Film. Fantastic stuff.

Bear with me. You have to follow the train of thought.

1. I was reading Women's Hoops Blog, where they were reporting on last weekends' games. Seems the University of Rochester is up there near the top of the D-III standings.

2. This catches my eye because Fly Girl did 3 of her 4 degrees at U of R. So I click through to the U of R website and I see this proclamation that U of R is one of the 25 "New Ivies."

3. So I want to know what the heck a New Ivy is. The short of it is there's a bunch of schools that are not Ivy League schools that are of Ivy League-caliber and just as competitive.

So now I'm thinking that this is just kinda funny. Because that image totally fits with her. Nothing but the best for FG. And I'm thinking "Yeah, yeah, this is some kind of something Kaplan came up with and now all these schools have another marketing gimmick they can use."

Of course I have to flip through the list (included below if you don't want to read the whole article). It's in alphabetical order. I get to Macalester College, which catches my eye because it's here in St. Paul. So far all these schools are really small and/or private schools. I'm thinking that they probably all will be. And I'm thinking this list is kind of silly.

And then the next school is Michigan. Michigan, where for years you've been able to purchase "Harvard, the Michigan of the East" t-shirts. I should probably shut up now.

Michigan was also followed by the likes of NYU, Carolina, UCLA, and Virginia. So they're not all small and/or private. The article lists NYU, Penn, and Northwestern as Michigan's overlap schools. U of R's overlap schools are Cornell, Brown, Tufts, NYU and Northwestern. By some transitive property does that mean Michigan and U of R overlap?

Anyway, to spell out the hypocrisy of it all, I thought the list was silly until I found out my school was on it.

Enh, it's still kind of silly.

I talked to Fly Girl yesterday, to wish her a happy 30th birthday. She was on her way to go shopping. I was teasing her because she's been known to shop to fill a void, and she heads to the same places every time: DSW, Herberger's, the Eddie Bauer Outlet.

A few hours later I found myself in the car on my way to the Knollwood Shopping Center to hit the TJ Maxx/Old Navy/DSW trifecta. So clearly I had no right to talk.

I had a bit of a revelation the other day. Conveniently, I remembered it long enough to share it with my therapist.

The gist of it is thus:

A year ago I thought that a happy relationship could make everything else that sucked (and everything else did totally suck) not matter so much.

Now, that relationship is gone, but everything else sucks less. Okay, fine, for the most part, things are pretty good. Job sitch has turned around 180°. Choir has been fulfilling in a way that I could not have imagined. Running is cool. Metroblogging is cool. Living by myself for the first time ever is cool. I am happier than I have been in a long time.

Of course I'd like to have a happy relationship, but a relationship does not make you happy. It can make you happier, but it does not make you happy. And it does not make that other stuff matter that much less or go away. Balance. Balance is what you need.

But that's not all. Oh, no, I'm on a roll. Moment of Self-Awareness #1B:

I've been sour on Xmas for a while. The fuzzy glow of my mom's crazy orchestration dimmed a while ago. I've got this nagging loner tendency, and it makes me want to do things like spend the holiday by myself on purpose.

The second I had somebody I really wanted to be with, my whole perspective on Xmas changed. I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to put up the (2-foot) tree and the lights and have the dinner and go on the sleigh ride and make snow angels and all of that. I wanted the fuzzy glow back.

Needless to say, no fuzzy glow this year. This year, I have no idea what I'm doing for Xmas. Frankly, I'm having a hard enough time thinking beyond what needs to happen at work to worry about what to do with my four-day weekend which is... next weekend already (holy shit!). I know I'll be working that week between holidays, even though I'm "on vacation" because there's work that needs to be done. (I'm bitter, long story.)

I'm not going home. Last year was the first year I wasn't in Michigan for Xmas (that's hard to read). This year will be the second. I don't have any plans. It's not convenient or affordable for me anyway. Fly Girl warned me that spending Xmas by yourself sucks and that I should go home. But I really don't want to go home just because I don't have anything else to do. I want to want to go home, and I don't. So I'm not.

I'm so glad I took an extra day off to chill at home instead of coming back to work right away. I didn't actually chill much, but my brain had time to settle down.

I went and saw Body Worlds at the Science Museum of Minnesota. After being extended for three months, it's closing this weekend with round-the-clock showings Friday am through Sunday pm. Crazy. If this exhibit comes to a museum near you, you must go see it. It won't blow you away, exactly. I didn't come out of it all, "WOW!" But it will make you think.

Did a little shopping. Land's End has $24.50 down vests, so I picked one up because Fly Girl absconded ended up with my last one. Target. Grocery store.

Probably should have slept more, but oh well.

I'm a slackass. I was productive around the house last night, but I totally skipped my last long run so I could sleep in and then socialize. Didn't run at all today. Probably not gonna get 12 miles in tomorrow. I could maybe on Wednesday before I fly out to Seattle, but that's getting close to race day when I'm supposed to be tapering.

After last week's mad rush to finish up some things at work, I'm not really looking forward to doing it again, as more things are due up in the very near future. But things have to get done. I purposely took next Tuesday off, even though I get back on Monday, but part of me thinks I should be doing some work on Tuesday....

I've now blown through the rest of my gift card. The Eddie Bauer outlet sent me a lovely postcard informing me that things are currently up to 70% off. So I trucked my ass all the way across the Twin Cities metro to go to the nearest outlet, and then stopped at TJ Maxx on the way back.

I got a new bag, a pair of pants, and yet another striped wrinkle-free shirt at EB. I can never have too many of those. And then I got a couple pairs of pants, a long sleeve tech shirt (I'm taking that back), and a jacket at TJM.

Whenever I shop (and quite often when I get dressed in the morning), I ask myself either what would Fly Girl wear or what would my sister wear. They'd probably both tell you that it frequently looks like I chose to ignore the answer.

Anyway, they are what inspired me to buy this jacket, although it's getting a little cold to wear it now. It's cordury, three-button, casual but not lumpy "functional" outerwear, and not black like the five other jackets I have. It's cute. And it makes me look like I'm 30. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was seeing myself through the eyes of my teenage self who would look at someone in their 30s and not really have any concept of how old that is. But that's okay. Maybe when I wear it people will stop thinking I'm 22.

I heard some queeny fashion designer on the radio the other day talking about fashion dos and don'ts. He was talking about how pear-shaped people always make the mistake of wearing khaki pants with dark tops. Because you should wear dark colors where you want to de-emphasize and light colors where you want to emphasize.

I'll never buy a pair of khaki pants again.

FG already, rightly, made me get rid of a couple pairs. Okay, I bought one new pair of khaki pants, but I checked them out thoroughly. They have strategically located back pockets. The other two pairs are black. Those are safe, but also with back pockets, just to be sure.

Back pockets are my friend.

So, I'm pretty pleased with how things turned out.

Our incumbent Republican governor won, but Dems retained control of the State Senate and took over control of the State House. Out of 8 congressional districts, 2 Republican incumbents won, 1 was upset, Michele Bachmann (super right-wing religious conservative, known for hiding behind bushes spying on a gay rights rally at the capitol) unfortunately won, and the rest stayed Dem.

Amy Klobuchar became the first woman senator from Minnesota, kicking the ass of Mark Kennedy who I really wanted to see fail because Fly Girl's no-longer-friend Maestro worked for MK's campaign. Down in flames!

We passed an amendment to the Minnesota state constitution to dedicate motor vehicle sales taxes to transportation funding (it currently is divided between transportation and the general fund), with some caveats about roads/bridges vs. transit. Boo. Right idea, wrong method, and it makes it harder to balance the state budget.

As I already mentioned, IRV passed for Minneapolis city elections. Yay!

And there's a little bit of a scandal. There was a "parody" site up basically calling Tammy Lee, one of the Independent congressional candidates, a racist. Turns out the site is linked to Chris Stewart, a Minneapolis school board member. The Lee campaign sort of made it worse by accusing her Dem opponent (Keith Ellison, first Muslim in Congress, first black guy from MN) of being responsible for the site. Apparently Chris Stewart has quite a blogging history, but it hasn't been previously linked to his true identity.

And that was just here! Good job, Minnesota (except for y'all in the 6th district).

So, I joined a choir. The Twin Cities Women's Choir. Best thing I've done in years!

!!!

This has not been the best start to a week. So, I was working nights last week and my sleep schedule was all jacked up. I think I made it worse by staying up all day Friday (Fly Girl and the outlet mall beckoned), so I was exhausted by Friday afternoon. Got in bed at 4pm and didn't budge until 11:00. So I missed out on Girls' Night at KathyHowe's and I missed out on the 612 party, both of which I very much wanted to attend. I then spent the rest of the weekend either sleeping or dozing on the couch.

This jacked up sleep schedule resulted in my being wide awake at 4:30 Monday morning. After laying in bed for an hour, I decided to go for a morning run. As I'm returning from a very pleasant 5 miles, I see a tow truck in the parking lot of the hardware store across the street. The lot where I had left my car. You see where this is going.

Fly Girl called the other day and the first thing out of her mouth was, "The new Justin Timberlake song is way better than that other one you posted."

Totally right, that one.

My Love*

(Right click, whatnot, por favor.)
*no mas

Reflective this week. Fitting, as Friday will mark my 4-year blogiversary.

1. Comparing your life as it currently is to the way it was a year or two or five ago, are you more content? If so, why? If not, why? Oh, lordy, yes. Five years ago, I was just realizing how much I didn't like my cereal-making job and had no idea what to do about it. Two years ago I was only slightly less broke than I've ever been. I was bitter about my tablet monkey job and hadn't made any discernible (to me) progress in the year I'd been there. A year ago I'd just been promoted, and I had applied for an engineering job several months prior but hadn't heard anything about it. Things with Fly Girl were going as well as they ever had (or ever would).

At the moment I'm lamenting the fact that I can't seem to get everything going right all at once. Things are not where I'd like them to be socially, but overall things are as much in order as they have been otherwise. For the first time ever (excluding my sophomore year single dorm room), I have my own place. Financially things could be much better, but I'm far less stressed about it than I have been in years. That's huge. For once, I feel secure.

2. What do you hope the next year will bring? Do you expect things to more or less stay the same? Or do you see big changes? How do you feel about that? I hope to make significant progress towards reducing my debt. Job-wise, I expect things to be pretty much the same, but I'll be seriously evaluating whether I want to stay where I am. At that point I'll have some experience under my belt that I can leverage in a move. Don't have that at the moment, so here I stay.

I really need to get some new friends. I need to branch out. I've got friends in various groups, but nobody (local) that I'm close with, and no one that I feel I really connect with. A girl's gotta have that. And I suppose I ought to date someone, but the idea of "actively dating" is not appealing, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if I just don't. That's the way it's been for all but the last two years anyway. I kinda feel like I have enough to worry about with everything else to be fretting over this. Maybe that's part of my problem. It's that whole thing about feeling like I don't have enough to offer until I get my own stuff in order. Which is possibly unrealistic, because I think I'm pretty well-adjusted.

Although if there's one thing I got out of being with FG, it was that being happy in your relationship can make a lot of those other worries a lot less worrisome. For me, it seems to take a lot of "other" to balance the relationship part of life. So in the absence of a happy relationship, I have to have a whole lot of other stuff going right to feel half as content. Which, at the moment, I kind of do.

I'm not wild about the fact that I expect things to be much the same a year from now, but if all that means that I've made a dent in my debt, then it'll be okay.

I also expect to have nicer furniture a year from now.

3. What would your ideal life situation be? Do you feel that it's within your grasp, or merely a pipe dream? My ideal life situation involves me enjoying my job, being able to travel a fair bit, living somewhere on the west coast, having a girl who loves me as much as I love her, and having some awesome friends to hang out with. Can't define it any more than that. I feel like eventually I'll get enough of those things to be happy, but it won't ever be ideal, and it won't be anytime soon. So I wouldn't call it a pipe dream, but I'm certainly not close to it. Maybe once I get closer to Happy, i'll be more able to focus on ideal. For now I'd just be happy with, uh, Happy. Because as I said above, I'm content, but I sure wouldn't say I'm Happy.

4. Ask me something. What's keeping you from making your next move?

#2 Notre Dame 21
#11 Michigan 47

Hell. Yes.

*strut*

I started out watching the game with the U-M Alumni Club of the Twin Cities. Which was great. Except I had a screaming headache so I left at halftime, but not before scoring some gear. A local Nike rep who sells Gopher gear is somehow required to sell Michigan gear as well, but it doesn't sell very well and he just wanted to get rid of it, so he was there unloading his stuff on us at wholesale prices. (I got three shirts, including one Dri-Fit shirt I can wear when I run races, though it's not exactly what I've been looking for.)

Props to NBCsports.com for all their video coverage. Full postgame press conference. Nice.

P.S. Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis looks exactly like Fly Girl's friend Maestro. It's creepy.

Just for the record, my lack of posting energy isn't really directly related to Fly Girl's moving.

The FG thing is just one item on the list of things I don't seem to have the energy for. And, actually, there just ain't that much to say. I wouldn't quite say I'm "enh" or "indifferent." But... yeah. Enh.

Seriously, the entirety of my mental capacity is consumed by work right now. I don't have it in me for much else at the end of the day. Day two of a four-day week and I've already got 23 hours in.

I've got to get my butt up and out and running in the mornings because it just doesn't happen when you get home at 7 or 8 at night. I had intended to do it this morning, but then I was stressed out and didn't get any sleep last night, so I stayed in bed the extra hour. And really, I need to fall asleep, oh, immediately in order to get enough Zs to do it tomorrow. I'll try it anyway.

So yeah. I felt a need to clarify. Carry on.

There's plenty, besides this, keeping me preoccupied but I'm not much feeling talkative about it. I could go on about work. I have a ton of photos I haven't uploaded. I haven't talked about the relay race.

It's all there. It just doesn't want out.

Which is weird, because generally when I don't feel like being around people, I'll blog up a storm. Not the case, though, at the moment.

It's going on 2:00am. Waaaay past my bedtime. I'm really tired, but my brain will not shut off.

I busted through a lot of blog reading. Work was super busy today (12-hour day, ugh), and will be tomorrow. Plus the consultant guy is starting tomorrow. The relay race is this weekend. There are all of those little details to take care of. In, fact, I just paused in writing this to book a hotel room. Another 20 minutes gone.

And Fly Girl's out of town for the week, so I've been thinking in her absence. You know how that goes. Actually, that's really not that deep, but it's still taking up bandwidth. It kinda simmers in the background. Lest you worry, I'll have you know that I am in a good place. To be completely devoid of detail....

Plus I'm hungry. I've stayed up too long since my last meal. Shouldn't eat right before bed. I already brushed my teeth. But how can I go to sleep with my tummy growling? Maybe I'll down a SlimFast, re-rinse, and call it a night.

I already laid down once and couldn't settle down, so I got back up. To write this.

But really, I'm ready to go to bed now.

Today in the "On This Day" section pops up this from 2005. If I had a pithy comment to make, I would. I'm rather speechless.

*sigh*

Chaz remarks and receives comments on how to get your blog traffic up and what makes a successful blog. To which I say...

1. Whatever happened to blogging for fun?
2. This whole "successful blog" stuff is definitely a guy thing. I'll call it "penis blogging."

Fly Girl was asking me about BlogHer.* She's wondering what the heck a blogging conference is gonna be like. No doubt she thinks is going to be nerdy. I said that I'm really curious to see what it's going to be like, too. Because a blogging conference full of women is going to be totally different from any other blogging conference, which is almost certainly going to be dominated by men.

There are women out there who certainly are focused on expanding their audience. In fact, there's at least one session at BlogHer dedicated to this very thing. My feeling, though, is that women want to expand their audience because they think they have something useful to share and they want to reach out and help others and connect as much as they can.

Guys want to expand their audience because they want to have an expanded audience. They think they have something important to say and want people to hear it, but their intentions strike me as far less altruistic. More traffic. Bigger penis. *argh*argh*scratch*

That's a pretty blanket statement. But every stereotype has root in the truth.

That's a vague shitty Eric Cartman reference. Anyway.

My fucking internet at home is still fucked up. My rental company has an in-house group that takes care of all our internet/tv stuff. They've been out twice, gotten about as far as acknowledging that there's a problem, and best I can tell not actually done much of anything to fix it.

They said they fixed the wall jack, but I later found out from the technician it was because he accidentally knocked a wire out of place himself. He also recommended I try repairing the IP address every time I can't get on. Okay, well, that's ALL THE TIME, and the shit ain't supposed to work that way.

I haven't changed a damn thing in our setup, so I know it ain't the router or either of our laptops. But it's been screwy since we lost our power in a storm a couple weeks ago. Two weeks!

Their business hours are something like 9am to 4pm. You know, I'm at work from at least 7:30 to 5:30 every day. Can you at least accommodate me by being in at, say 8:00 so I can only be a little late for work? Hell, your office is in the building next door to mine.

It's pissing me off. Seriously.

My legs are dead.

Ran late Friday night. Ran my long run early Saturday. That right there was ill-advised. Went for a 19-mile bike ride this morning with Fly Girl. A hilly one. And then played two hours of sand volleyball.

But my friend Girl Talker and his fiancee did a triathlon yesterday, so I feel lame complaining.

We had thunderstorms Friday and Saturday, so both those runs were in real humid conditions. Felt gross. I was slow. I was sopping wet at the end of each one. Took a nap Saturday afternoon. Today was gorgeous. 70s, sunny, and with a light breeze. Great for a bike ride and for volleyball. Took a nap this afternoon, too.

Can't wait to take tomorrow off.

Alternate title: Baby did a bad bad thing.

I went to Target. Shopping list: Paper towel, toilet paper, a water pitcher, and an audio cable.

You know how Target is and how you always spend more than you expect to and you often forget one thing that you meant to get in the first place. I did not get toilet paper. At that point I didn't feel like carrying it. Because my arm's were full of other stuff.

I ran the Easy Does It 5-Miler last week.

I felt like I was off the whole week before. But, yet again, I took it easy a couple days before and, yet again, was fine come race day. I really ought to quit worrying about these things. I've not just been pleasantly surprised, but personally blown away by my finish times in almost every race I've run. It's one thing to manage my expectations and it's another to just be way the hell off.

For years I've had problems with my ears. Get water in 'em, can't hear. Lay down, can't hear. Most of the time, they're mostly clear, but I do spend a lot of time tugging on them. Last couple of trips to the doctor, I was just told to use the drops. Drops haven't been working.

Today I got out of the shower and couldn't hear for shit out of either ear. Fly Girl told me to quit being a martyr and just go to urgent care. So I go to urgent care. The doctor takes one look, confirms that I ought to be growing potatoes in there, and sends a nurse to flush them out.

The nurse filled up a bucket with warm water, grabbed a giant syringe, told me to let her know if I felt any dizziness, and then went to town. I used to get this done a lot when I was a kid. It kind of tickles. Feels like you're trying to flush something out from between the folds of your brain.

(I was also thinking of Lachlan the whole time. I think she told me once about being a med tech in a past life and having to flush out ears and guys have much waxier ears than girls do. Or something.)

I had no idea that ears could hold so much crap. She showed me all the wax that came out. There was a freaking lot of it. I said that while I felt much better for me, I felt badly for her. She assured me she'd seen much worse. I got three syringes full of water in each ear, and she rooted around some with a little stick.

An hour and a half and $35 later, I feel like I have super bat hearing. I told the nurse she was my favorite person this week. Seriously, I thought the sound of my keys jangling was gonna blow my head open.

So, while I've had a built in pair of earplugs for years, I can't wait to go to bed and not have everything automatically tune out as soon as I go horizontal.

I highly recommend it to everyone.

I like having four seasons and all, but the extremes kill me. Kee-rist.

I just spent 20 minutes digging through my storage unit to find the Twindow fan (*hawesome*) to put in the bedroom. Naturally, it was underneath the Xmas trees and ornaments (and a bajillion empty boxes).

I broke down and turned the a/c on, too. Why am I depriving myself? The only reason would be because I'm cheap. Why the fuck do I care about a few dollars on my (already really low) electric bill when I'm about to spend those few dollars on an iced chai just so I can sit somewhere else with a/c?

Fly Girl had all sorts of sob stories from last summer in her un-air-conditioned apartment that involved a ceiling fan, a spray bottle, abject misery, and feeling sorry for herself. My place last summer wasn't much better. My roommates had window units in their rooms. Their rooms were far away from mine. I decided to wait until it was already hot to go a/c shopping and of course there were none to be had. And our windows were old and leaky anyway. So I had a two-window-two-fan system going that made it just barely tolerable.

There'll be none of that this summer.

I totally want to buy Stick It when it comes out on DVD. Fly Girl wanted to see it since she used to be a gymnast, so we went right when it came out. I called it Bring It On, but with gymnastics instead of cheerleading. AfterEllen calls it the same thing:

[Blah blah blah about Newfest, the New York City gay film festival.] [T]here are some lighter U.S. entries, like ... The Gymnast, a story about lesbian love set in the world of gymnastics. Not to be confused with the recent and probably funnier teen flick Stick It, the Bring It On-esque film about heterosexual love set in the world of gymnastics.

Speaking of which, why doesn't someone make a lesbian Bring It On? Now that I would gladly pay good money to see, especially if Eliza Dushku was in it. Her character's so gay already, you would only need to rewrite a little of the script.

Amen, sista.

Today...
...is gonna be hot. Forget summer. I want spring back.
...is gonna be long. I went out last night and didn't get very much sleep.
...doesn't feel like Friday, because I was pretty sure yesterday was Friday.

This week...
...I feel like I actually accomplished some things at work.
...I found out my car needs another $1500 in repairs.
...I slacked a little on the running. I hate to be a whiner about the heat, but it really does make a difference.
...I got my new (to me) bike back from the shop. Can't wait to ride it this weekend.
...I have wished numerous times that the ceiling fan that's in my living room was in the bedroom instead.

This month...
...is the six-year anniversary of my first tattoo.
...the spending has been a little out of control.
...Fly Girl graduated with her (second) Masters! Congratulations, babe.
...I've been metroblogging like a fiend. Which makes me forget that I don't post here. I know I've been blogging somewhere.
...has flown by.

Fly Girl does this thing, when she has the bed all to herself, where she arranges the pillows so that she's sort of cocooned. It's super cute. And it never fails; she moves the pillows within minutes of my getting up.

I came home one day to this. She must have been in a hurry in the morning and didn't make the bed before she left.

I could have written this myself:

As an adult, I absolutely suck at keeping in touch with people. It's not as bad as it could be - email makes it easier, but even still, I'm not really good at sending an email to someone I’ve been thinking about to just say hi....

I don't think I'm anti-social, although sometimes I think maybe I am. I think it all boils down to laziness in some cases, and in others it's just that I think about emailing someone and then I get distracted and forget. You know, because I—ooo, look! Shiny!

I scold myself all the time for not keeping up my friends. Especially when it comes time to do something social and I'm hesitant to call anyone because it's been so long since the last time I talked to them.

It's more that I'm an introvert. I don't hate being around people. I just like my alone time. A lot.

Fly Girl is on the phone all the time. She's got her core group of peeps and she's always talking to them. Whenever she thinks of someone — boom — she gets on the phone. I don't really have a core group of peeps at the moment. And I'm not so much into calling just to say hi. I call when I have a specific purpose.

I'm gonna have to work on that if I want to have anyone to do things with during my new-found free time.

When I was a tablet monkey, we had uniforms, so I could wear any old thing because I would change clothes when I got to work. The biggest challenge was remembering to bring socks with me in the summer.

With the job I had before that, the environment was very casual. Even though I didn't necessarily, I could have worn jeans and a t-shirt every day.

With my new job, I'm now doing the business casual thing every day. I've been stocking up on clothes for a bit in anticipation, so I am able to dress myself. I'd feel better if I had a little more, but I'm good for a couple weeks at a time the way things stand right now.

Add to it that I'm a much better dresser now (with significant help from Fly Girl). I've long since stopped shopping in the men's section. I buy my clothes so that they fit. And dammit, I look good! So this business casual thing is enough of a novelty to me that I've been contemplating taking a picture of my outfit every day to chronicle this transformation. Starting today when I get home.

Now, if only I could figure out what to do with my hair. Evening workouts = evening showers = crazy morning bedhead.

Thank you, Sherri, for saving me from a totally content-less day.

1. When is the last time you had a papercut? Last week. Although, technically, it's more of a foil cut.
2. Would you rather have a 5 pound tumor on your face or a 50 pound tumor on your back, neither of which could ever be removed? *shriek* On my back, I guess. I could not look at that in the mirror every day.
3. What was the best part of your weekend? I did several enjoyable things this weekend, but frankly, I had the most fun grocery shopping with Fly Girl.
4. Do you like peanut butter? Only when mixed with chocolate. Especially in Reese's Miniatures.
5. List three foods you can't stand. Hot peppers of any variety, olives, and anchovies. It's a total coincidence that those are all pizza toppings.
6. Did you make your bed this morning? Yes. I never ever used to make my bed, but FG has gotten me in the habit and I think I might actually keep the habit.
7. When it comes to handshakes, are you firm? Absolutely, yes.
8. What was the most effective punishment for you as a kid? I didn't get punished a whole lot, but I seem to remember having to go a week without television as being particularly difficult. I also distinctly remember hiding under my bed once trying to avoid a spanking.
9. What is your favorite way to fix/eat potatoes? Mashed, with some sort of cheese. White cheddar or gorgonzola.
10. Ask me something. Say I have $300 extra out of my first new and improved paycheck. What should I spend it on?

Both Fly Girl and KathyHowe have been saying for a long time what a great movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? is. I watched it with FG last night. (If I had realized she had it on DVD, I would have watched it a long time ago!)

OMG. I don't even know where to start. It's mindblowing. I'm going to have to watch it a few more times. And watch all the extras. And read all the books.

In case you're entirely unfamiliar with the concept of the movie, the message is basically about the intersection of quantum physics and philosophy. What is reality and how do we know that?

The main things I took away from it were:

1. Your reality is what you think it is.


1. Your brain can't tell the difference between what you're actually sensing, and what you may be imagining. It responds in the same way. e.g., think of sexual thoughts and how your body responds. It responds much the same way to actual physical stimuli as it does to whatever mental fantasy you create.


2. Similarly, what you think about yourself becomes true, just by your thinking it. e.g., think of how attractive someone who is confident in their attractiveness is.


2. We're all addicted to something, in some way, and that fuels our actions and perspective. Because addiction is about emotions. We're actually addicted to emotions. Those emotions may be caused by a substance, or just by our experience.

All this science and philosophy is delivered via interviews with a bunch of doctors/scientists/philosophers/really smart people. And this is interspersed with and expounded upon by a fictional story about a photographer, played by Marlee Matlin.

Hell, it's got it's own study guide.

(I was trying to figure out where the fictional story was taking place, as I thought the city looked vaguely familiar, and I like to do that with skylines in movies. I finally decided on Portland (mostly based on the view across the Willamette River). I googled a sign from the transit station just to check and it turns out I was right.)

Anyway, it's an amazing movie. It will definitely make you think. I feel smarter just having watched it. And I know from having watched it that because I think I'm smarter, I am! Go see it. Go!

Hot damn, y'all. The spring weather feels so good. SO GOOD!

So last week I complained about my hip flexors being tired (but not sore), and then I came across a thread in the Cool Running forums about... strengthening your hip flexors! How 'bout that? I tried adding some flutter kicks in with my push-up and sit-up routine. My hip flexors went from "tired" to "sore" with the quickness.

There was also a thread about running just to run vs having a strict training schedule. I wish I could run just to run, but right now I can't. I did that all winter with no set schedule and I hated it. That might have had more to do with the fact that it was winter. But still. I think part of my problem is that since I'm still pretty new to running, I haven't raced all the distances that there are to race. I feel like I need to actively work towards a five-miler/8k, a half marathon and a marathon, and then after those monkeys are off my back I'll feel better about getting out there and doing what feels good every day. I have a feeling I'll probably make better progress if I just stop worrying about it. Although if I'm running just to run, how do I track progress? Or why do I need to progress, exactly?

I took my long run yesterday. Started from Lake Nokomis, took Minnehaha Parkway over to the Mississippi River and back, then did a lap around Lake Nokomis for about 6.3 miles. Now, there's a spot in town where Minnehaha Ave and Minnehaha Parkway intersect. Minnehaha Park is right there. As many times as I've driven, biked, and run through there, I never until yesterday realized that Minnehaha Falls are right there. I mean, I knew the falls were somewhere between Lake Nokomis and the river. In my defense, they're not very well marked. There's a roundabout there, so if you're in a car, you are not at all looking around. You're just trying to figure out where the hell you need to turn off. You can't see the falls from the road. Anyway, now I can say I've seen the falls.

Today I took my first bike ride of the season with Fly Girl. (Note to self, get your bike checked out. You could have gotten up this morning and at least made sure you had air in the tires and the chain was on track and you had all your gear instead of noticing this stuff as you're on your way out the door.) It was a nice day out, but windy. And our route was hilly. Talk about a hip flexor workout. Sheesh.

*pooped*

Have I mentioned that I {heart} Bette? I think I have. And you know what? The way my life is going, I so am Bette right now, which made her story a little difficult to watch. (No, there are no babies involved.)

Jennifer Beals is fuckin' hot. Seriously. Anyway.

To cut to the chase, the point of this post is that Fly Girl and I have broken up. Again. While, again, I'm disappointed that things didn't work out in such a way that we're still together, I am actually quite happy with where we've ended up. Namely, it's a reasonably amicable breakup and we're still gonna be friends.

I told her the first time we broke up that I'd rather have her as a friend than nothing at all. And I told myself when we got together the second time that I thought that things had to happen the way they did for a reason, even if it seemed to be less than ideal. I'm pleased to find that both those notions are holding right now.

It's funny, actually. The predicament we're in. And this is where my Bette comparison comes in. Bette and I are both:

• biracial
• living with our ex, who is dating a guy*
• unhappy with our job situations, but with a hot prospect on the horizon
• hoping for some sort of pleasant amicable future with the ex

So, yeah, I thought y'all should know.

*Now, there's a condition on my telling of and your reading of this story. Throughout the history of my relationship with FG, I have found myself to be extremely protective of her. That may or may not be justified. The details of what happened are not so much important. Sure I was mad at her, hurt by her, frustrated with her. A lot of stuff I didn't broadcast, for a variety of reasons. So I appreciate y'all's support, but I really want you to remember that it's about me. It's not about her. Don't hate on her. Trust me, she's got her fair share of issues with me. She and I (and our respective therapists) know what's up. Thanks in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

<Blaine and Antoine>

Hated it!

</Blaine and Antoine>

I mean, really. Let's just throw some random crap in at the end of the season and then we'll have a few months to figure out what the hell we're doing. Ugh. On the whole I'd say this season was okay. There were some good spots (like that one episode with all that sex, Fly Girl and I agree), but definitely some low points as well (like the finale, and the fact that Dana had to die). But still, really, the best part is the AfterEllen recaps. Hilarious.

Spoilers after the jump.

I think I've neglected to mention this at all, so let me catch y'all up.

If you'll remember a year ago I applied for an Associate Validation Engineer position with my company. That basically went nowhere. I was told that our parent company had instituted a hiring freeze and I didn't hear much more beyond that. I periodically talked to vice presidents and directors and engineers and whoever I thought could get me some information, point me in the right direction, or put in a good word for me. I got promoted within my department last summer, and I've been doing my team leader thing for six months now.

Three weeks ago I went down to HR and asked what was going on with hiring in engineering. I get told that they had just gone down to That School That's Inferior To Mine That They Hire All Their Engineers From for campus recruiting. Also, they had just talked to the hiring director for engineering and he had mentioned that he wanted to meet with me. Apparently every couple of months when they meet to discuss these things my name comes up.

So two weeks ago I met with him for the first time. I hadn't actually met him before. I've met, like, everyone else. But not him. So I chit chatted with him about what I'm interested in, a little bit about my background before coming here and at this company. Real basic stuff. He's a very nice guy. Turns out he also used to work at my Previous Employer.

The next day I checked back in with HR and they say that they have four soon-to-be-new grads scheduled to interview and they want me to get on the schedule as well. So this past Monday I went through my day o' interviews.

It's Monday again? Sheesh.

1. What's the next holiday/event you're really looking forward to celebrating? My birthday. The Boyz are coming to visit! *happy dance*
2. If you had to choose, what would be your favorite gadget? My iBook. Or do we mean something smaller? Maybe my iPod.
3. What magazines do you subscribe to? I don't, but if somebody were to gift me with a subscription, I'd like Utne, please.
4. How often do you floss your teeth? I was totally in the habit for a while, and then I slacked off again. I maybe do a three-day stint about once a month.
5. When is the last time you sent/received flowers? I bought Fly Girl a red daisy sometime last summer.
6. What is your favorite breakfast? The #2 at Uptown Diner. French toast, eggs (scrambled with cheddar), and bacon. With coffee. So you get both the sweet and the protein breakfast.
7. Are you a lip balm addict? Addict? No. But I do really really like to have some on me at all times. I don't usually have more than one or two sticks at a time.
8. If forced to choose, would you rather have an active sex life without the possibility of ever having an orgasm, or have fantastic orgasms but be forced to remain celibate? OMG, you cruel cruel woman. I think I'd rather have the orgasms. But... I don't really know. As a lesbian, it'd be much easier to have a happy emotional relationship with no sex (no sex together, anyway) than it would be as a hetero woman. I'm just going to be grateful that I do not actually have to make this decision.
9. What would you do right now with $50? Pay my therapist. Or buy some jeans.
10. Ask me something. Spring is coming. Planning on running any races anytime soon?

It turned out to be a beautiful day today for the St. Patrick's Day 5k & 10k. At 10:00 this morning it was about 30°. I was skeptical with all the snow we got this week, but the roads were clear, the sun was out, and it warmed up nicely. I figured we'd be on the bike path, but the street around Lake Calhoun was actually blocked off, which was nice.

I ran with Alena, who kept my ass moving. I would have probably slowed down quite a bit on the second lap had I run it by myself. We kicked it a little at the end and I ended up with a finishing time of 58:03 (my official time is 58:07, but I started back a little ways in the pack; 58:03 is what I saw when I crossed the finish line). That's a 9:21 pace. Waaaay faster than I thought I could run it. I was expecting about a 10:00 pace if I was lucky, accounting for race adrenaline and all that.

They moved the starting line at the last minute, so there was quite a bit of confusion amongst race-goers as to where to be. They said something about the course certification, but didn't they know that far enough in advance to let everyone know? Nothing was very well marked. If I had driven, it would have been less of a big deal, but Fly Girl dropped me off. I hitched a ride part way and then walked some.

The red Running Room tent ended up being about a quarter of the way around the lake from where they said it would be. Which was okay in the beginning, since the weather was nice and I wasn't running too late. But at the end it meant that I was on the complete opposite side of the lake from where I live, so I was lucky enough to hitch another ride instead of having to walk the whole way or wait very long for FG to pick me up.

So it was good! I'm glad I did it. I'm glad Alena was there. And now I have my first official 10k finishing time.

Blizzard edition.

1. Is there snow on the ground where you are? A little.
2. When is the last time you played in the snow? Played? In the snow? I guess it would have been the last time I went skiing, which is probably a good four or five years ago now.
3. Do you generally like snow? Not really, no. It looks pretty out the window, but I wish it would morph into spring the second I step outside.
4. Have you ever had a snowball fight? I'm sure I have.
5. Do you like to ski or snowboard? I like skiing alright. I'm sure I'd like it more now that I'm actually in shape. It's kind of an expensive hobby, though. I actually really like the snowblades/mini-skis. I've never tried snowboarding. Fly Girl was just saying yesterday that she ought to try snowboarding. I say she would be the Cutest Snowboarder Ever with all the cool gear on.
6. Have you been watching the winter Olympics? A little. I'm not generally home in primetime. I'm so sad about Michelle Kwan.
7. If so, what's your favorite even to watch? Figure skating.
8. Have you ever built a snow fort? I've built snow tunnels.
9. What's your worst snow-related injury? I'm not sure I've had any.
10. Ask me something. What are your thoughts on watching the upcoming season of The Amazing Race that we totally should have been on? Personally, I'm a little bitter.

Not too long ago I told Fly Girl this story about the girl I dated about three times while I was back living with my parents.

I've come a long way.

Fly Girl got us free tickets to see a screening of Imagine Me and You tomorrow night. I have to ask Hey Mon if he'll let me leave work early tomorrow. It's a really bad time for me to be out, but maybe for just three hours....

Sherri's 30th Birthday Edition

1. How much of a total slacker am I for not yet sending out an email invite to my birthday shin-dig which is on Thursday? I'll be lucky if anyone even shows up at this point. *mope* You're not a slacker. You're just otherwise occupied. Okay, no, you're a slacker.

2. What has been your most memorable birthday so far? I've had some pretty good birthdays. The last few years I've been on vacation for my b-day, though those were more coincidence than plan. My 21st was memorable in the way that you would expect a 21st birthday to be, and that's not necessarily a good way. For my 16th we were in the throes of putting on Jesus Christ Superstar in my high school, and I received one of my favoritest CDs and my first pair of Birkenstocks.

3. Have your parents ever forgotten your birthday? Nope. Although last year I declined to acknowledge their acknowledgment.

4. What would be your ideal way to spend your birthday? I'm not really big on "celebrating" my birthday. I'm just looking forward to spending it this year with Fly Girl, because I didn't last year (and I've now lived through two of her birthdays). I'd be content to have a nice dinner somewhere I don't usually go. I've had some exciting birthdays, but not because it was about my birthday. It was because I was doing something fun, and it's like my birthday was the bonus.

5. Do you share your birthday with any of your friends? I haven't shared my birthday with friends here in years. I have shared it with The Boyz the last couple years on account of being on vacation with them. Again, not real big on celebrating the birthday.

6. When is your birthday? April 30.

7. What's your favorite kind of birthday cake? Yellow with white frosting.

8. Do you ever buy yourself presents for your birthday? Kind of. I impusively splurge on myself from time to time, and my birthday just happens to be an excuse to do that. I think last year around that time I bought myself an iPod mini.

9. Are you good at remembering other people's birthdays? Nope. There are a very few whose birthdays are burned into my brain. But even then I rarely remember in a timely fashion to do something thoughtful about it.

10. Ask me something. Do your friends tend to be older than you or younger than you?