cherry blossoms, here again

So the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler is two days away. I have trained myself silly with speedwork and long runs (peaking with a 13 miler two weeks ago). I ran that 8K three weeks ago to get a sense of my speed ability -- and was on track to run sub 1:20 for the 10 miler.

Now I have been sick all week -- as has Iz. (Abraham seems to have skipped the whole snotty nose, low-grade fever, coughing fit thing. No fair! He has no race to run!) I wasn't deathly ill or anything, and I am getting better and was hare-brained enough to wake up at 5:30 am to get a little 4 mile run in ("a little" 4 miles because I am supposed to be tapering, after all).

But there is no way I will be at peak strength on Sunday morning. And I am really disappointed. Maybe I am being silly -- I can run it just fine at a slower pace. Barring something extreme, I have no fears about not finishing. But I actually took my training seriously. I had aspirations! Sure, I'm no world-class runner. At my best, I am a front-of-the-middle of-the-pack runner. So why should I care? Ah, because I do.

Okay, the goal now is to enjoy the race, right? Just kick back... I can talk myself into this... maybe... After all, it's not a marathon (which is much more involved and daunting).

Actually, I ran fast last year, but I was uncomfortable much of the time -- I wanted to do the same speed, but have fun doing it...

St. Patrick’s Day 10K (8K), March 12, 2006

What issue (or issues) does Washington, DC, have with races?

Sure, the Marine Corps Marathon remains untouched, but it seems like almost every other race has been modified, eliminated, or moved to Haines Point (and who wants to run every 10K on Haines Point?). Some have been affected by security concerns, others by complaints about road closures, and yet others by sponsor issues.

I have run the St. Patrick’s Day 10K almost every year since I moved from New York City to Washington, DC. (I didn’t run it in 2004 when I was eight months pregnant with Iz.) This year, just a week and a half before race day, the race organizers were forced to change it to an 8K. I don’t know the full reasons, and these race organizers are fantastic (The Capital Running Company). But they said that they couldn’t get permission for the course – a course that has gotten permission for 18 years in one form or another.

I had a great race – my fastest time in years (37:16 – imagine what I could have done with a 10K…) – and at least the race actually took place, unlike the Jingle Bell 10K, which was eliminated (and it followed the same course as the St. Pat’s, hmm…).

But the troubles and changes got me thinking about other races that have been messed with:

• The Georgetown Classic 10K course, which started on M Street and went up into the residential neighborhoods, had tough hills but was interesting, different. Then Georgetown residents complained about road closures (I can’t help but think the wealth of those rusty wheels made them more effective), and the course was changed in 2001 to go into downtown DC, which was fine. As of 2003, the race has disappeared.
  
• The Sallie Mae 10K, which used to make a nice, flat loop around downtown, now goes out and back along Haines Point. Sure, it is fast, but so boring.
  
• The half-marathon that used to be held downtown in September is gone, too. (I never even got to run it!) I don’t remember its name or the reasons for its disappearance.
  
• The Washington DC Marathon was held one year and cancelled the next. But this was the fault of the organizers, who were a for-profit entertainment company and s*ucked – they didn't care about the runners.

So, are DC races cursed?

At least the Capitol Hill Classic 10K still covers a fantastic course that actually goes down and up Capitol Hill.

I hope the Army 10 Miler (which was affected in 2005, but I hope that was not an omen) and the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (which I’m running in three weeks) stay the same – those courses kick a*ss.

Zamia Street house, Redfern (first paintings)

angst and what happened to February?

I guess it is a short month. So March... March!?!

I am feeling so angsty. Why? I don't really know. But my stress seems unusually high (and I am a pretty anxious person -- so I function on a daily basis with eleveated stress).

Things I have been thinking about (again and again-- taking turns in the front of my mind):

• Doing creative things: even writing this blog seems creative, an outlet, and I have not done so for over a month; I have a painting I want to do (imagine that, a painting, me!), but I have only begun sketching it out in pencil and rough paint strokes. It will be of a very cool house in Sydney (see photo at right).
• Whether or not to have another child: My friends who have many children seem crazed, and I have been put off of the idea of more than one. But I just realized that those who have two kids seem sane enough for my tastes. Those with three or more exist on another, rather unappealing, plane.
• My list of "relatively unimportant things to do" (these have been on the list for months, at least, and are only a sample of all that is on the list): Alphebetize CDs; move clothes that are too small for Iz to the "to be saved" bin or to the donation box; clean my office (which I now have fled to work at the dining table instead -- the baby gate blocking the office door seems to make it seem even more overflowing with crap than maybe it really is).

(Perhaps cleaning my office should be on a more important list, but finishing my work, caring for Iz, eating, and exercising push it to the bottom, or to the top of the unimportant list. I think I would feel better if it were clean...)

I remain angsty. And I have almost no patience for the husband, child, or dog at this point. (Iz probably gets the most leeway in the midst of my angst.) I have to fix this, but I don't really know what the problem is. (Maybe I should do something creative, decide to have a second child, and clean my d*amn office.)

look alikes

This is my husband. Well, not really. This is John Krasinski, the actor, in his role as Jim Halpert in American version of The Office. But Abraham does look so much like this -- even the manner is the same (and the hairstyle is similarly amusing, though Abraham has a moustache and goatee thing going on). I think the actor in character is darn cute, too, and that must be a good sign of how I feel about my dear husband.


I was out of milk on Saturday morning -- my 1% milk, not Iz's whole milk. Abraham suggested I use the whole for my coffee and oatmeal... Does he realize how much calories and fat are in that stuff? Iz's body and brain require it. Mine do not. (My brain is no longer developing... unfortunately.) So I drove to the local Giant to grab some. (I prefer Safeway, but the closest is at least a 10-minute drive away. Actually, I prefer Whole Foods, but I suppose they are too upscale for PG County.) The check-out woman did a double take on my face and said I looked like some famous woman, but she couldn't remember that celebrity's name. I have not had anyone tell me I look like anyone famous for a long time. And why do I care? Yet I wanted to know.

The exception to this dearth of celebrity references is my mother, who (again and again) insists I look like Kate Beckinsale. That's fabulous, but so not true. (Am I just hung up on the fact that she is about 20-30 pounds lighter than me? She is skinny as skinny can be -- and I am pretty fit and lean, but nowhere near her size.) And Mom insists Abraham looks like John Cusak. She once sent us a magazine ad for Serendipity, a mediocre movie which starred the two actors. (I said she insisted!)







On Sunday, an article in The Washington Post reported on a website that allows you, through some face scanning technology, to find out which celebrity you (or anyone you have a good head shot of ) look like: www.myheritage.com. I have uploaded a few photos. (Really, I'm not obsessed.) So far, My face matches no celerity above a 63% likeness. But Cate Blanchett, River Phoenix, and Drew Barrymore keep popping up... At least those are the ones I find somewhat realistic and yet flattering. I would love to look like Halle Berry (and she popped up as a match), but I really don't.

(You may ask why I don't post a photo of us. Perhaps I am trying to preserve some anonymity... Maybe someday.)

thinking about resolutions and a clean desk (at the end of January)

I read The Washington Post Magazine Year in Review issue. Well, I was reading it a few weeks ago. But even then, I was reading Sunday’s paper on, oh, the following Thursday. It usually takes me all week to read the Sunday papers. (And then it takes me weeks more to write about something that strikes me. The magazine has been sitting on my desk next to my computer since that Thursday, January 5.)

I do not remember the last time I made a New Year’s resolution. New Year’s celebrations have always been anti-climactic. Except the time I ran the Midnight Run in Central Park, but that was seven years ago! What fun: 15-degree temperature, fireworks, champagne at the halfway point in little thimble cups, ice on the Central Park roads....

Anyway…

I was reading The Significant Others column by Jeanne Marie Laskas, “The Journey of a Thousand Miles… begins with a trash bag.” She writes about New Year’s resolutions (fitting, right, for a January 1 column?), trying to pick just one small thing instead of rolling over the last year’s resolutions that never got done. Her thing was to be a neat(er) person. After considering where to get started, she focuses on her desk:
“I see there are many items that can be pitched. Here, for instance, is a pair of reading glasses I got at Target with lenses that turned out to be way too strong for me. Looking through these glasses gave me actual motion sickness. Now, someday, my eyes may need correction this strong, so should I save them? Or perhaps should I donate them to charity? One of the two rubber nosepieces is missing, but I suppose there are nosepiece replacements you can buy. Um. What the heck am I supposed to do with these things?”

I look at my desk… Who cares if it is a new year? I should always keep it neat, throw things out. But I don’t. I see s*hit tossed everywhere:

• A hammer that I used a week ago that should be returned to the toolbox (and I have gone from office to basement enough times to just grab it and take it down with me).
• A list of dentist names and numbers that I should file (let alone that huge pile of “To Be Filed” crap).
• The cord for charging my iPod and another one for downloading photos from my camera spilling across the desk top.
• A licked-clean spoon, probably left here from when I ate breakfast over an editing job a few mornings ago. The dish made it to the kitchen, the spoon was left behind.

I have no reading glasses from Target. But what If I threw out something? Or put something where it belongs? Ah, that would feel good. But whenever I am not working or caring for Iz, I don’t get around to cleaning my office. Well, I do actually clean my office now and again. And then it is so much more pleasant to sit and work here.

But it is so hard to get started. So instead, I wrote this blog entry.

"Jesus!"

Iz says "Jesus!" Yup. As an exclamation, not a prayer. Hmm. The first time I heard it, I thought I must be mistaken. And I thought it was very funny.

Ours is not a religious household, and a portion of the family is Jewish. I am the only complete non-Jew of the group (if you exclude the dog -- but who knows what faith he would choose). I grew up celebrating Christmas, but not as a Christ-filled day. Church-going was never a family practice. "Jesus" is certainly not said as in a "proper" Christian context.

Still, Iz exclaims "Jesus!" at least once a day. When I told my dear Abraham about the Jesus-saying, within Iz's hearing, Iz said, "Jesus!" Abraham asked, "Is he the second coming?"

So where would Iz hear the name? On Sunday mornings he isn't watching shut-in church services on television.

A few days after Iz's first "Jesus!", I emerged from the basement after putting on a load of laundry, I had an editing job to face, and Zi the Dog was battering the back door to be let back in. My to-do list was getting shorter, but only a little.

I sighed and shook my head, "Jesus!" I paused and recognized what I had said. Oy. I had no idea the significant name was part of my swearing vocabulary. With an unexpected clarity, I realized that, actually, I say it a lot (as an exclamation, not a prayer).

Now I know where Iz got it. Many people have warned me about kids repeating what one says at inopportune moments. But I thought it would be something I immediately recognized as one of my words or phrases. I don't know what the moral is. And I don't want to offend anyone, though I don't believe I am being blasphemous.

I considered trying to excise the name from use, so Iz would move on to something more... more what? Appropriate? Not drawn from someone else's religion? But, what the hell, I don't think I can.

Almost French and remembering (and facing) the past

I recommend Almost French: A New Life in Paris , a memoir by journalist Sarah Turnbull. It is one of the best books I have read in a long time. All the clichés apply: I couldn’t put it down; I lost track of time while reading; etc. Turnbull writes about her first years of living in Paris, where she still lives. You may love Paris or know nothing about it – no matter because her story is simply a good story. She moved to Paris in an uncharacteristically whimsical way, fell in love, built a freelance journalist career, and faced culture clashes (she is Australian). Her writing is so real, clear and uncontrived.

More than recommending the book, I admit it has further inspired me to write my own memoir (if it turns out to be that – it is mostly theoretical). Mine is a very different story, that of my freshman year in high school from 1985 to 1986 in Brooklyn, NY.

But I face some of her same issues, primarily of remembering or facing, really feeling, that past time. In her prologue, Turnbull writes,

“Those early difficult years in France seem a lifetime ago now, as though they were lived by someone else. So much has changed since then, including me, probably. The truth is, when I started to write this book I had trouble taking myself back to that time. I don’t know why it should have been so difficult. Either I’d forgotten or subconsciously didn’t want to remember or, being a journalist, I was paralyzed by the idea of writing in the first person. Probably a combination of all three.” (pp. ix-x)

I feel I could have written those words about much of my past. It is indeed a combination of all three. Turnbull conveys the difficulties so darn well.

My mother saved my journals from that time, and I am sure I kept one during my freshman year. But now I can only find those from the summer following that school year onwards. I’ll either have to do some searching for the actual journal, or begin writing down what little seems clear – and hope more comes back to me.

And, hey, Happy New Year!

running early (bags under eyes)

In order to get a peaceful, non-crammed run in, I have been waking myself up at 5:15 a.m. (beating 20-month-old Iz to the punch). Abraham (that lovely husband of mine) is a teacher and leaves the house at 7 a.m. I time my wake-up so I can be out the door by 5:30 and back before Abe leaves. Well. It has been cold lately. Very cold. But I still do it. I don’t mind the cold. And I enjoy the time. I can get a 6-8 mile run in. Then I feel like I have extra time all day. No worries! (Well, some worries. Fewer worries?)

When I was young(er) and single and baby-less and living in New York City, I used to do the same. I ran in snow, in rain, in 10-degree weather, in the dark, and without a dog. Now I have the dog, so loved ones worry less about my safety. (Though the dog, Zi, is a wacky, friendly hound/lab mix who has never bitten a soul. He does have a mean bark.) I don’t know why it took me so long to do these runs again.

The first time I ran in the early morning in my PG County neighborhood, it didn’t occur to me to be nervous. Heck, I wasn’t nervous doing so in New York City! But I grew up there, so I knew not to run in the lower depths of Riverside Park until the sun was up.

On this particular morning in PG County, a white van seemed to be following me. The van was moving slow, right behind me. I would turn, and the van wouldn’t follow me, but it would pop up again on another turn. This went on for at least two miles before I noticed the newspapers flying from the open window. Ah. Now I see the van all the time. I recognize The Washington Post white van and The New York Times burgundy SUV. The SUV driver is friendly and waves. The van driver looks at me as if I am crazy and in the way.

I am a little more tired (but not dramatically so). But I don’t wake so early every morning. But Iz does compound the tiredness. Recently, he is not sleeping through the night because he is viciously teething. Are these bags under my eyes permanent?

timekeeping

A shower takes me seven minutes. The actual shower part, that is. The post-shower routine (hair and tooth brushing, moisturizing, etc.) also takes about seven minutes. Abraham, my fabulous husband, thinks this is too long. (This coming from a man who can spend upwards of 20 minutes in the bathroom for non-shower reasons).Granted, his shower may take two minutes – no joke. (I sometimes question how clean he actually is.)

I know exactly how long tasks will take.

A trip to the grocery store, including drive time, takes an hour and a half at best. I really, really dislike going to the grocery store. I didn’t mind it when I lived in New York City. I walked there with my shopping cart, stocked up, and walked home with a heavier shopping cart (or had it delivered for just the price of a tip to the deliverer). Shopping in the suburbs of Washington, DC, has a whole different feel – especially with a toddler in tow. The grocery stores are huge. Have I walked a mile or more by the time I am done? I am usually exhausted and a bit dazed – and I can go out and run 10 miles at a moment’s notice!

Walking Iz to his babysitter takes 15 minutes each way, so a half an hour for drop off and a half an hour for pick up means an hour gone.

In a given day, if I want to go for a run, get some editing and writing jobs done, make sure Iz is fed well (which is a trick in itself – the kid hates eating) and not totally neglected, keep the house in some semblance of livable neatness (and my standard of “neat enough” has dropped way down), get myself fed, and perhaps run one errand – there is no way I can get it all done:

• Running (or other form of exercise): up to 2 hours (including preparation and recovery)
• Editing and writing: 2-4 hours
• Feeding Iz breakfast and lunch and a snack or two: 2 hours (including preparation)
• Entertaining Iz: 4 hours (which is usually quite nice)
• Maintaining livable neatness: 1 hour
• Feeding myself breakfast and lunch: 45 minutes (including preparation)
• Completing any one errand (post office, supermarket, etc.): 1-3 hours
• Total: 12:45-16:45
  

And I didn’t include dinner (which Abraham, thank god, deals with most of the time). Or my shower time. Or maybe watching a TV show or reading a newspaper article. But I often abandon the errand or livable neatness completely.

So I have started waking up at 5:15 a.m. to run before Abraham leaves for work at 7 a.m. That makes me feel a little more on top of things. But tired.

I know I don’t have a bad life. Clearly, many in this world have it worse. I have a pretty good life.

My awareness of how long everything takes, however, can make me a temporary, but recurring, basket case. (Even more annoying – Abraham has no clue how long tasks take. He thinks a grocery trip takes half an hour – completely forgetting drive time and wandering quotient.)

boy crazy

My mother described me as “boy crazy” in high school. I thought that sounded so 1950s. But she wasn’t wrong. I would like to say that I was tough, independent, intellectual… and maybe I was. But I was also boy crazy – insane, really.

I have pulled out my freshman year journal and have not yet been brave enough to read more than a few sentences. A cringe-worthy sample: “Today was the last day of my freshman year at school. I can’t believe it is over. I didn’t get a chance to say a good, sound goodbye to anyone but A., J., and S. I didn’t even get to say ‘hello’ to N. I won’t see anyone until school starts again. Isn’t that freaky? I’ll miss some people so much. I’ll miss N. more than anyone, even though he lives stronger in my mind than in my life.” Oh, it goes on and on and on. I don’t even think I had talked to N. in at least a month by the end of that school year. And we were never close. I was simply obsessed with him. And he was a total a*sshole. (As I typed this, I read beyond those few sentences and cringed even more. This is going to be hard.)

I could not throw out all my old journals, but I never thought I could bear to read them again. My mother found them stored in a closet in the New York City apartment and carefully wrapped each bursting volume (I pasted clippings, letters and pictures into them) in plastic wrap (yes, the kind you use to store food). I know she didn’t read them. She is still appalled that her brother found and read her diaries from high school (in the 1950s) – and they were in their 50s when he did so.

So here is the next grand writing idea – find something worthwhile in the old journals. Write the story of my freshman year, or high school years, and emphasize the 80s-ness of it all. I was in high school from 1985 to 1989. And the 80s seem to be attractive again (legwarmers, Dynasty and Dallas on Soap channel reruns, 80s songs now classic rock).

But is it really interesting to read the story of a boy crazy girl? Ick. Well, I guess there is the whole chick-lit genre… But I don’t think I can write that way.I’ll just have to write it my own way.

run, don't walk

My child runs away -- toward, away from, for whatever reason -- whenever I put him down. It is near impossible to have him free, out of his stroller, in a public place. Especially one that includes roads and cars. Say, a park in the middle of a city -- like Hyde Park in downtown Sydney.

I continue my temporary single parent role. (Is it inappropriate to refer to myself in this way? Am I slighting true single parents and my husband with one phrase?) Iz and I are still with my mother in Sydney. We are managing to do some fun, interesting things even under the stressful circumstances.

We had to get out last night -- I could not be in the apartment for another moment. I have not been trapped there; we have been out and about for a bit every day. But I had an overwhelming urge to get out (and run?). It was 5pm and, even on a Saturday, all the shops downtown close at 6pm. We went anyway.

After a bit of shopping, we stopped at Starbucks for a sandwich to share and a coffee for me. (It is usually unnecessary to go to Starbucks here, in a land of great coffee. But we were desperate and everything else was closed by 6:15.)

Then we tried to have an imporomptu picnic on the grass in Hyde Park. It was lovely at dusk -- the darkeing sky, the city lights. Iz stayed in his storller and actually ate something -- pesto chicken bits from the sandwich. But the moment I let him out, he took off toward Park Street. A little wall, one foot high or so. separated him from the sidewalk and road. He could scale that with no problem. If the drop of several feet on the other side didn't hurt him, the road he looked intent on running into would.

When I caught him and turned him around, he took off toward the center of the park -- certainly safer than the road -- and he was 50 feet away from me in mere seconds.

After the running, we checked out a fun photography exhibit, "Sydney Life," which was installed on huge pieces of canvas in the central walkway of the park. I let Iz out again, and he ran down the paved walkway, under the huge, bright white lanterns, away from me.

Between this outing and a bunch of others, I now have a ton of pictures of Iz's back.

I put him down, and he goes.

believe in ghosts?

Maybe “believe” isn’t the right word…

I had an odd experience this morning. I put on the Animal Planet channel for Iz. (Iz loves Animal Planet, and animals in general). A show that focuses on a different dog breed each episode was on. Excellent, I thought, Iz loves dogs. I was only half watching as I made breakfast. And Iz wasn’t watching at all, as he roamed the living room with a shopping bag in hand, collecting his toys and dragging them around.

I can’t remember the name of the show, nor can I remember the specific breed of dog – some kind of spaniel. The show started with a story about ghosts in an English castle. I don’t remember the castle name, but it is open to the public. I also don’t remember the names of the gentry who originally lived there way back when.

But the story goes that a spaniel ghost haunts this castle. It appears as a normal, flesh and bones dog and runs up and down stairs, through halls, into rooms, and then disappears. Sightings are well documented: Visitors mention or complain about dogs being allowed to run loose in the castle, and the custodians and historians know all about this spaniel, which was owned by some lady (who also haunts the castle) hundreds of years ago.

While I watched this segment of the show (in a rather half-assed way, I remind you), I suddenly got serious goose bumps all over my arms and legs. I wasn’t cold. Nothing had changed in the climate of the room. I am not usually spooked by random ghost stories, especially on bright, sunny mornings. The goose bumps disappeared when the story was over and the show moved on to focus on actual flesh and blood spaniels.

When I retold the odd experience to my mother, I immediately got the extreme goose bumps again, which I found even stranger, compounding the earlier experience. While I type this, they are returning. Spooky.

I am not saying I believe in ghosts. Maybe I do think something might exist or linger (as vague as that sounds). I do think it is interesting that I reacted so strongly to a completely indirect experience – to something on television, a report of another’s report of the experiences of yet another layer of people. If I did “believe”, would my reaction validate the story itself, no matter how far removed? Or would it point to another “real” ghost in my own environment? Or simply point to something about me, inside me, that caused such a strong reaction?

hair loss

My mother has started to lose her hair. I guess that is the least of her worries. But it must be hard to face.

If I were in her place, I think this phase – following the first chemotherapy treatment, before complete hair loss – would be like limbo, just waiting. I think I would feel better after all the hair was gone. Then at least I’d be in it, over a hump.

(If I do go through this, which I very well could, at least I have the role models of three very strong, brave women, my mother and her two best friends, who have faced and survived treatment – I am assuming my mother will make it because it is hard to imagine anything else. She has always been here. If they can do it, I can if need be down the line. Actually, I know too many older women – more than the three I mention – who have gone through this. The numbers seem out of proportion with probability.)

I suggested shaving her hair off, but she doesn’t feel “brave” enough. She is plenty brave. She washed her hair and much of it came out. I was out running when this happened. She called one of her close friends in tears. She was seemed more peaceful about it when I saw her an hour or so later and she had pulled out all her gorgeous scarves.

I have yet to see her, reportedly dramatic, thinning hair. Neither of us wanted her to take off the emerald green scarf, at least for now. She carried Iz off to look at her scarves and I heard her say, “No, don’t pull the scarf off!” as I was walking in the opposite direction. I didn’t turn around.

different in Sydney, Australia

Three things that are different in Sydney:

1. The morning paper arrives wrapped in plastic wrap, not in a bag that provides a second service as diaper or doggie poop holder/disposal.

2. Talk radio is called "talkback," which makes some sense.

3. Almost everything is smaller: paper towel rolls are a good two inches or more shorter than their American counterparts and look squat; you cannot find huge cups of coffee, like the Starbucks venti, except in the Starbucks at Hyde Park and Park Street, and that venti is smaller than the U.S. venti. (So paper towels and coffee are "everything"?)

Those are just three things I noticed this morning.