Misery Business

Sometimes things hurt. A lot.

Today it was random strangers telling me I needed to go to eHarmony or match.com to find a husband.

A week ago it was losing a friend.

Dammit.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

This post brought to you by a bottle of wine and a bottle of Delirium Tremens. And here.....we.....go.

-Season seven of House is the best season of the entire series. Period. It has made me cry multiple times. The second to last episode, well, there was sobbing through the entire last half. So good. So, so good.

-I got a cold. It's first time I've been even slightly sick since January. A teensy cold knocked me on my ass. Hard. I am not a fan of this. I have been out of workouts for four days and am finding this entirely unacceptable. Back to lifting tomorrow. End of story.

-Having a week off work is certainly letting me give in to my desires to sleep in and drink. Not in that order.

-I like Skype.

-Friday a friend of mine is getting married. I am thrilled that she is happy. Truly. It is just going to be a long day, though. Six hours of driving (there and back) is totally worth it.

-Also coming up is New Year's. Despite the drama that was so overabundant last year, and even though I was a huge part of the drama (big ups to HB for physically restraining me from punching a dude), I'm willing to risk it again. I like being dressed up and fancy with friends. And Glycerine will be there, so you know, awesome.

-It's. Never. Lupus.

How to Hate

When someone tells you to fuck off.....

Wait....

When someone tells you to fuck off REPEATEDLY, it does not mean try harder.

It CERTAINLY does not mean act like nothing has ever happened.

Motherfucking asshole.

Christmas Time Is Here

It is Christmas.

I'm drinking whiskey with my parents.

There is an Irish Carbomb cake in the fridge (Guiness cake, Jameson ganache filling, Bailey's frosting).

A couple of siblings will be here with their significant others very soon. We have plans to have the booziest of boozey Christmases this evening.

Typical Christmas? No.

Awesome Christmas? Hell yes.

I hope every single one of you have a fantastic day!! And that's not just the Jameson talking.

Serenity

The other night I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and our discussion turned to the questions that James Lipton asks actors on Inside the Actor's Studio. One of the questions asks what a person's turn-ons are. The question was posed to me with the specifications of being emotional, creative, or spiritual turn-ons. I'm sure none of you are surprised that I considered all aspects.

When considering the question in terms of physicality, it's simple. A slight hand on the back, or pushing my hair away to kiss my neck or whisper something to me, or even an incredibly aggressive kiss. The kind that have a bit of fire behind it.

Thinking about the intangible alternatives, it's not so simple.

Emotionally the thing that gets to me most is probably music. This same friend posed the question to me asking what, in the movie of my life, would be playing during the credits. My initial and overly cliche response was Green Day's "Good Riddance." The song reminds me of leaving high school, of taking the next step into something unknown and different, and the feeling of being READY to move on. That's what I'd want, to be ready when it's finally time to leave this place. After being told that my response was quite possibly the most cliche response ever (admittedly, it totally is), I started thinking. A better option would be the Beatles' "Golden Slumbers." It just....is.

Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing you a lullaby.

Sometimes music strikes an emotional chord with me that's capable of bringing me to tears. Sometimes it pushes me to act on things I'd been thinking about, or to say something I needed to. In certain cases, it gets to me at such a deeper level that I can feel it resonating through my entire being. The score from The Holiday is a perfect example of that.

For both creatively and spiritually, my answer is the same. Nature.

As my mom and I were driving through the darkened highways of Illinois on our way to North Carolina for Thanksgiving, we were discussing spirituality. We were both raised within the same religion, yet neither of us ever seemed to find the type of peace there that so many find in a church. Without provocation from her of any kind as I was growing up, we both find that sort of peace, that inner tranquility, in nature. Interestingly enough, it appears this argument was nature winning over nurture.

I can sit next to an ocean for hours, just listening. The day after Thanksgiving instead of giving in to the mass consumerism that has so blatantly taken over this season, my mom and I spent our morning watching the sun come up over the eastern coast. It was freezing cold, yet we sat there with our shoes off, toes in the sand, just....watching. Silent. It felt almost indulgent.

Well, until the dolphins started jumping out of the water. It was quite possibly the most peaceful I've felt in ages. The size of the ocean reminds me that there are things out there so much larger than me. The innate, thriving power of the water, the simplicity of seeing nothing on the horizon, it's such a juxtaposition of the two that I can't help but sit in awe. It's also the faith that can be found in something so steady. Some people have faith in God, I have faith in the constancy of the ocean. Every day, high tide, low tide. Every day the waves will rush over the sand, or crash over them as the case may be. No matter which ocean you're next to, standing in the sand, just within reach of the water, knowing for sure that if a wave rolls over your feet that the sand will be pulled out from underneath them, that type of solidity is comforting. I have never once felt that kind of peace, that kind of joy within any sort of religious edifice.

That look was on my face the whole time I was next to the ocean. It is my happy place. The sister, well, she loves cameras.

Interestingly enough, the ocean also makes me act a bit like a little kid. Jumping over waves, kicking water, breathing in the briney air and just enjoying being in the presence of such greatness. Ask anyone who's ever actually been at the ocean with me.

It's not even just the ocean. When I went to the Grand Canyon, it was all I could do to keep it together. That place, quite possibly the most awe-inspiring place I have ever been, was created over millions of years by one river, meandering along without any agenda, without any intention of creating the magnanimous result it was bound to achieve. It is just incredible.

Over the summer, our family reunion was held in Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains. We spent days just taking in the scenery, marveling at what was seemingly untouched by any outside forces.

The views from this place, I honestly can't even fully put it into words. I felt so small, so tiny compared to this great wide world we're lucky to be a part of. It was the same feeling I get at the ocean. That peace.

One day while we were there we hiked up a mountain, past a couple massive waterfalls, all the way up to a lake at the top of the mountain. The waterfalls, roaring and emphatic in their reminder of the greatness and power surrounding me. That lake, crystal and still, enough so that I could see the iridescence of the rainbow trout swimming below me. It was as though all the sound was sucked from the place, even with my many young cousins running around. The mountain peaks towered around me, covered in patches of snow that never fully melt. It was untarnished and brought out in me an almost reverent type feeling, the kind people seem to find in the presence of religious relics.

Even sitting here in my apartment, I can remember so clearly that cold, crisp breeze pouring off the water that it's nearly giving me chills.

I'm remembering the intense thunderstorm we experienced one night in camp. I don't know if it was the closeness of the clouds or the mountaintops, but that thunder was the loudest I've ever heard and felt. Whether we were just that close to it or whether the thunder was reverberating off the mountain, I'm not sure. It shook my entire body to the very center of me, made me feel like my ribs were about to shatter.

It's times like that, like this I suppose, when I am calm, that I'm motivated, or turned on if you will, creatively. To write, to create. It's when I wished the most that I could sit down in front of a piano again. I'm not a visual artist, by any means, but I feel like I can put things down in words and paint a mental picture far better than any sort of paint brush or pencil or charcoal could ever afford me. I'd even take painting someone else's vision through piano keys and my long fingers and sheet music that happens to be faded and frayed because I played it so much when I was younger.

To think about all of this, they are all connected. The sounds that accompany the thunder, the waterfalls, the bustling rivers high in the mountains running over the pebbles worn smooth, the rush of the ocean, they're all nature's music. Creativity, spirituality, emotion, all combined. Nature and music combined. I suppose my answer to James Lipton's question wasn't all that difficult after all.

The Three Aaaaaaaaamigos

Did you know that it is possible to drive from Nashville, TN to St Louis, MO in less than four and a half hours?

It is when you're mildly hungover and exhausted and really just want to go home and sleep.

I won't bore you with details about the actual game, but suffice it to say, I love me some goalie goodness and I hate shootouts.

This trip to Nashville (yes, just for a hockey game) has been in the works for months. Now that it's over? I feel a bit of a sense of emptiness, like we need to find something else to look forward to.

There were nearly fifteen of us sitting in various parts of the arena. Beforehand we got to spend time at the Flying Saucer and drink delicious and very strong brews (Delirium Tremens, how YOU doin?). We were able to cheer for our team, get to know Preds fans (who for the most part are actually pretty awesome), and then we took over a bar. We bonded with people over a mutual abhorrence of Detroit, and I showed a couple guys that it IS possible for a woman to shoot whiskey with no chaser, thankyouverymuch. I got to take a drunken walk through downtown Nashville and eat one of the most delicious pitas ever.

My favorite part though? Being able to road trip with these two.

We've come to call ourselves the Three Amigos, and if Texas hadn't sucked, we would have been wearing sombreros at the game. Instead we took to holding up a massive Blues flag in the arena. These ladies are two of my marathon training partners in crime, and I'm pretty sure the world shook from the awesome when we finally all got together. We drove for hours listening to Swedish techno, we stopped in Metropolis and took pictures with a giant Superman statue, we laughed til we could hardly see straight, we made ghetto mimosas (Andre and Sunny Delight), and we took Nashville by storm.

However, the person that decided working the day after what we've been calling #EpicDec was a good idea? They suck. This shit blows.

I Wanna Yell It From the Rooftops Down

Yesterday I was perusing through Facebook, as I tend to do, and came across a few statuses from people I went to high school with. They were all lamenting the loss of their friend Nick. It wasn't until one of them tagged Nick that I realized that he and I had graduated together.

We're 27 years old. He died from cancer.

It felt like someone had sucker punched me in the stomach. He and I weren't ever close, by any means. We hadn't spoken since high school, and even back then were just casual acquaintances who had the occasional class together. However, there's something about learning of someone YOUR AGE dying from something that's supposed to be so foreign that makes you look at your own mortality fairly closely.

It's odd, the difference between the death of someone by cancer versus when it happens by suicide. It's death, no matter how you look at it, and it brings that absolute mourning that accompanies knowing you'll never be able to speak to someone again, even if that possibility was highly unlikely. Both situations will cause tears on someone's part, both incurs sympathies from outsiders and bystanders.

Both remind me how much I have to be grateful for.

When Kelly died it was an honest to god slap in the face. It was a wake up call that forced me to realize that even though sometimes things get rough and sometimes tears are shed, those things are so much better than not experiencing them at all. That living this life is far greater than inflicting that kind of pain and suffering on someone else.

Like the character Madelyn said in The Departed: "Death is hard. Life is much easier."

When it's a forceful taking of life through something like cancer, when it's someone who should have had years to live, it's difficult. I went back through posts about Nick, back through some of his pictures, and every single one of them spoke to how upbeat he kept, even while battling a tumor he had named "Tyrone." He would post pictures of getting his radiation and chemotherapy treatments, of what his hair looked like when it started to fall out, and in each one he was smiling.

I admire that. I admire his ability to look what he was facing head on and seemingly say, "Ok, you bitch, let's do this thing." So many are ill-equipped emotionally to do the same.

It feels unfair that a life was cut short so young. It is unfair that another life, who seemed to have all the potential in the world, wasn't regarded as good enough to carry on having.

Life is finite, of that I am well aware, and though I know that there will be days that things are so difficult I can't see past my own little world of despair, there won't ever be a time that I am not grateful to still be here.

I promised myself last March that I would do everything I could to live this life, MY life to the fullest, and I think I have been. Taking the chance to write about hockey even knowing there was the distinct possibility that I might fail spectacularly. Putting my mind to and finishing that marathon that's been on my bucket list for ages. Not worrying so much about what my sleep schedule looks like if I'm afforded an opportunity to genuinely get to know someone, regardless of whether it's in person or not. Working through my own issues with the past and finally letting go of people from those times who did nothing but hold me back. Allowing myself to be open about what I think and feel, even if it makes someone mad or makes things weird. Refusing to settle for less than I deserve. Agreeing to go on a date with someone 15 years my senior, even if it did turn out fairly awkward, because I didn't have a reason to say no. Finding the joy in things like watching the sun rise over the ocean with my mom and a pod of dolphins as my only company or just how much I enjoy silly scientific things or driving for three hours just to have dinner with my best friend or the smell and feel of a brand new book.

In the first Harry Potter book, Dumbledore said, "To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

This adventure now though? Pretty spectacular.

Short skirt and a looooooong jacket

Every once in a while friends will send me links to articles that they know I'd be interested in. This week I got this particular article from Jezebel, which is hit or miss with legitimate stuff to read, honestly. The title? "Short Skirts Magically Turn Women Into Bitches."

Ok, so I get that Jezebel is widely known for it's ultra-feministic attitude, having articles ranging from weekly tabloid titles/content to shoes and fashion to evil birth control manufacturers to just why dating is so impossible these days. And that's just from their main page TODAY.

Some of their stuff I absolutely get a kick out of. Some of it is drivel. The article I was sent? Kind of in the middle.

This particular article discusses the female reaction towards another female who might be dressed provocatively, citing heavily from this study that was performed in Toronto and rates women's reactions on a bitchy scale. Let's for just a minute ignore that a "bitchy" scale is highly subjective and absolutely should not have under any circumstance found its way into a peer edited and reviewed scientific journal, I don't care how stimulating the findings were. I have not read all of this study (yet), but I've gotten the main gist of it.

The study is basically stating that women tend to compete with one another (that I won't argue with), but that those rates of competition are statistically more significant when one woman is dressed in a provocative or slutty manner. They say that a woman who is dressed conservatively will receive next to no reaction, negative or otherwise, yet one who is in a short skirt or a low cut top, for example, will tend to generate "bitchy" comments from their female peers. It goes on to imply that even the males in the surrounding areas will react more to the scantily clad female.

In the Jezebel article, they state that while the outward appearance of one woman may seemingly be the cause of the competition and bitchiness, the root cause of such behaviour is directly related to a preconceived notion about men. Specifically:

"[B]ut the researchers completely miss the root cause of this intra-female competitiveness: the widespread belief that men lack sexual self-control. Several times in the discussion section of the study, the investigators cite research or repeat their own hypotheses that "women are threatened by, disapprove of, and punish women who appear and/or act promiscuous." But that "threat" only exists because of the nearly-universal acceptance of the idea that men are hardwired for infidelity and will inevitably cheat on their mates if given a chance."

That is absolutely where I call bullshit. It's this kind of "blame the man" mentality that makes me read any and all articles from this site with a wary eye. Feminist or not, blaming men for all problems is not the way to equality. Being a feminist is about finding and keeping equality, not pushing responsibility off on someone else.

The author continues saying:

"It's not news that women are socialized to be competitive with each other. It's not news that, as my students remind me, sisterhood is easier in winter. And it will continue to be the same old news until we name the real root of the problem: our collective refusal to believe that men are capable of being strong, responsible, reliable adults."

Statements like these are what drive me crazy. The real root of the problem lies not in how men are perceived, it lies in the fact that women are bitchy with each other because they're not confident enough in themselves to understand that another strong woman is not a threat.

There are situations where clothing can definitely bring out the bitchy side of women, absolutely. I am well aware that at times I've been guilty of making snap judgments based off what someone is wearing. The thing is, I understand it from the other side too. I understand being so unbelievably proud of your figure that you just can't wait to show it off because it makes you FEEL good. I do think that some outfits are crazy and inappropriate, but that's more based off of weather and the situation at hand. If you want to dress in a super mini skirt with a low cut tank top because it's 103 degrees outside? Have at it. I wouldn't blame you. If you wear a super mini skirt with a low cut tank top yet it's below freezing? Then I wonder about you and your skin's nerve endings.

The thing is, strong, confident women can get this negative and bitchy reaction from others even when they ARE covered up. They can walk through a room and still turn every head. My friend HB is a perfect example of this. She lights up a room the instant she walks in, can turn heads and drop jaws, and is honestly one of the sweetest, most genuinely caring people I know. She walks like she's sure of herself (because she is) and has this air of confidence about her that is honestly quite refreshing to be around. She's a strong, independent woman, and even when she's covered from neck to ankle, I have seen the looks she can sometimes get from other women. That scathing, how are you having a conversation with HIM, type look.

I have found that it doesn't even matter what you look like, if you carry yourself in a confident manner, some women will dislike you.

Women compete. HUMANS compete. I understand this. I thrive on competition, even when it's internal and I'm pushing myself to be better than I was previously. The type of competition I see from other women, however, gets really old sometimes.

My parents raised me to be independent, to be able to take care of myself and not rely on anyone else. My own confidence is very much a product of my mother's influence as she herself has always been one to walk into a room with her head tall and give all of zero fucks about what someone else is thinking (or saying) about her. We have both over the course of our lives had instances of other women disliking us without even knowing us, making snap judgments because of our attitudes. It's generally those women who I've found to be lacking in self-confidence, to be jealous of either the attention or the ability to carry on a conversation with just about anyone I come across.

These women tend to be the ones to get pissy if they're not the center of attention, those who TRY to bring the focus back to themselves in a conversation, those who will resort to extreme measures (crying in a bar, for instance) just so that they're getting the looks and not someone else. I have an acquaintance who is precisely this way, who I've heard (or heard about) on more than one occasion make statements regarding a woman who gets attention, stating that they're just trying too hard. This particular woman changes the instant a man is in the vicinity.

It is frustrating to watch this type of action, as it indicates that she thinks her self-worth is brought on through how much someone else is paying attention.

That's where the crux of all of this lies. Women need to realize that they're fantastic in their own rights, regardless of whether they're getting attention from someone else. They need to believe that it doesn't matter what someone else thinks about them, that if they're happy, that's all that matters. Some of my best friends are the most self-assured women I know. It's like that because they're not intimidated by my own confidence. When we're together, we can run a room.

That whole confidence thing? Pretty fucking sweet. I wish more women knew about it.

One step closer to the edge

This morning I woke up late. Not just one of those late wake-ups where you look at your clock and realize that you'll be a little more rushed in the morning, but the type where you look at your clock and instantly dive out of bed because you should have walked out your door 45 minutes before that and still need to shower.

You know that edge of the fight or flight decision where your heart is racing and you're jumpy and you are clenching either your fists or your jaw? That's been me. All day.

I'm sure that third cup of coffee didn't help.

Today's anxiety levels have left me exhausted, yet somehow I'm still feeling like I could snap at any moment. None of it is directed at anything in particular (again), and that has set me even more on edge.

It's like little bits (or even big bits) from different aspects of my life are coming out to needle at me incessantly, causing me to feel the need to either actually, legitimately hit something or be fucked three ways to Sunday. I feel tense and rigid, and I can't get my shoulders to stop being magnetically attracted to my ear lobes. I keep blinking back tears and am torn between opening that bottle of wine that's hanging out in my fridge versus just going to bed now and saving myself the trouble of the potential hangover.

And then to add to that anxiety there's the rage. There's the rage from feeling ignored and underappreciated and underestimated and overwhelmed. The irritation and frustration borne from putting forth quite a bit of effort, sometimes forced effort, and yet having it still never be enough. There's the anger that comes from seeing someone act poorly towards my friends, which isn't always logical, but dammit, don't fuck with my friends.

You know that scene in Sleeping Beauty where Flora and Merriweather are fighting over the color of Aurora's dress, and they both hit it at precisely the same time, making it look all sorts of funky colored and mottled? That whole scene (BLUE! PINK! BLUE! PINK! BLAMMMO, ALL THE COLORS EVER!!!!), that's my mood today. Only it's anxiety to rage and back. About an hour and a half ago, I got hit with both, and then I left work because I couldn't be there anymore.

Now that I'm home I can't be here anymore.

Raise Your Glass If You Are Wrong In All The Right Ways

It's a thought vomit day again.

Josey had her baby girl in the wee hours of the morning today. I'm so freaking excited for her I can't even see straight. Also, let it be known, I have been right HER ENTIRE PREGNANCY about what she was having. Booyah.

I have received multiple texts (including one from the Cubs fan ex-boyfriend....weird) about Pujols leaving the Cards. Whatever. Cardinals fan before him, Cardinals fan after. * Kanye shrug*

I'm already sick of scraping my windshield every morning.

My fantasy hockey team is absolutely KILLING it right now. I only have one Blue on my team (Vladimir Sobotka), and he's been tearing it up. I'm still not sure why whoever had him before dropped him, but yeah, lucky me. Relatedly, I think my next Blues jersey acquisition will be a Sobotka jersey. Fantasy hockey team solidarity and all that.

My hair is way super long right now. I keep noticing this.

I get to run 8+ miles on Saturday. That could be....interesting. And cold. Yikes.

The further into my new role at work I get, the more I remember how much some kind of sick part of me really enjoys editing things by hand with a huge red pen. My inner grammar/content nerd is all sorts of out and about.

The amount I wash my hands on a daily basis + winter = dry hands = more lotion = Ann should buy stock in Bath and Body works. Also, I love Midnight Pomegranate.

I am so excited about Nic's Christmas present. I'm taking her to see American Idiot in March. Woo! That plus going to see Beauty and the Beast at the Fox in a couple weeks means that I'm going to be a theater-going fool, and I'm pretty thrilled about that.

My coworker and I hung lights in our office. I like them. They give me something sparkly and shiny to look at on a daily basis.

If you decide you want to be a jerk to one of my friends, prepare for me to defend them. Every single time. I am not scared of being a bitch to you.

It is cereal for lunch day.

Oh Christmas Tree

I'm not sure where this sudden surge of motivation to write came from, but you can bet your asses I'm going to go with it. It's nice to finally feel motivated to write again when that motivation was so very absent for far too long.

Yesterday I finally set up my Christmas tree. The past couple years it's seemed like I've had to nearly force myself to do so, but it never fails, once I start, I'm reminded that I DO actually like this holiday. Not quite as much as Thanksgiving, mind you, but I still dig it. As I went through the entire process, it kind of felt like the whole tree told a story.

The tree itself, along with a set of silver ornaments, blue lights, and a very glittery silver star, take me back to a time right after I graduated college, fresh into my new "real live adult" phase of life. My senior year of college my roommates and I hadn't put up a tree. I think that might be because we all pretty well hated each other at that point, so feigning friendship to put up a tree seemed silly. That and none of us had the money for it. When I moved to St Louis, I decided that I was actually going to put forth an effort. I was on such a strict budget back then that the thought of what a tree plus ornaments plus lights would cost was so out of my range that I nearly cried thinking about it. But the depression had hit particularly hard that fall and my concession to myself was to actually get the tree and trimmings and just let myself enjoy it. I put that tree up the day after Thanksgiving, and it brightened my mood if even just a little bit.

Still having this tree makes me feel a bit more adult-like. In the last four years, I've only broken ONE of those original ornaments. The tree kind of reminds me of the hope I felt those years ago, the optimism that things would actually get better, that I WAS going to be able to do this whole adult thing on my own. Every year since then, with the exception of one particularly low year the first time I lived alone, things have gotten better. From what I can tell, that trend has ever intention of continuing.

One of the first ornaments I got that didn't go with the "theme" of my tree came from my former coworker Scary Spice. She had nicknamed me Antoine within the first week of us working together. One day we went to Taco Bell for lunch, and they had clearly just decorated. There was a very tiny tree on which had been placed little ornaments with an employee's name on each of them. Though you might think that it would be festive, it mostly just made us laugh since each name had been printed out from a Word doc, cut out, and scotch taped onto the ornaments. Not only did that crack us up, but we also saw an ornament with the employee name "Antwan" on it. A couple days later she walked into work and handed me my present. An ornament on which she'd puff-painted the word "Antwan." I still laugh when I look at that one.

There's the homemade ornament that my now 15-year-old cousin made for me when she was just 8. It reminds me of a simpler time, a time when ignorance really was bliss, before life and reality bitchslapped cynicism into me.

There is the Christmasy palm tree I got in Hawaii when I went out to visit back in 2006 that reminds me of bee stings and volcanoes and sea turtles and Pacific Ocean water that was actually warm enough to get into.

I put up an ornament I got from my ex-boyfriend's grandmother. I know it seems odd to still have it, but she was a remarkable woman who I adored, and that ornament serves as a reminder that just because one person is a total asshole doesn't mean their family necessarily is.

I've got my replica of the Hilton Head Island lighthouse that reminds me of just a short time ago and just how much that trip melted stress away, how much I love being near an ocean even if I can't go in.

There are the multiple sets of various Cardinals ornaments that give my tree more color.

And then there's the absolutely gorgeous glass baseball ornament I got in a secret Santa gift last year that will never fail to remind me of the Teacher and how much I miss her and how much she still sucks by giving me a grape Smirnoff Ice in that same present.

Each ornament has a memory associated with it, and as I decorated my tree, it dawned on me that I'm really looking forward to getting more, creating more memories, gaining more stories to tell. It makes me hopeful and optimistic.

Well, and it's just really fun to look at.

Ready to Run

Ok, so I have significantly calmed myself down since my minor freak out at what I'd just done to myself with the signing up for another half marathon. For those of you counting at home, that makes four that I'll be running in the year 2012. Neat.

When something overwhelms me or freaks me out (meow-t), I go into crazy control-freak mode and make a plan. Sometimes that plan is smart, sometimes it is not.

Here is my kind-of-smart-but-at-least-I-have-a-plan-plan. It is set through February, for the few weeks after my 15k, and then all of a sudden it'll be March and April, and OH MY GOD ANOTHER RACE. I'm editing kind of as I go with those two months, as I know I'll be mostly building my own training schedule for what fits with my schedule and my goals.

That goal? Get fast. Get really fast. Well, maybe not really fast, but faster than I was in October, definitely faster than I will be in January.

Now, you might have glanced at that calendar and thought to yourself, "What the hell is the 550 rep challenge?" Well, my friends, it's this. Yes, I do recognize how crazy this looks. Yes, I am aware that the chick in the video is creepy looking. No, it is not my goal to be that ripped. Yes, I will probably skip these every once in a while.

I know you might think I'm crazy, but I promise, the good stuff about running is totally awesome. Feeling better, looking better, the crazy rush of endorphins that hits right around a mile and a half, the time to just let my mind be clear, the high metabolism (even if it does make me hungry all the time), the stress release, the camaraderie. I love it and am SO very grateful that my knee has been just fine for the last year and a half.

It's going to be a wicked yet amazing couple of months.

Edit: See, it's not just me. 

It's Been a Bad Day

This week has been absolutely stupid when it comes to highs and lows. It seems like days where things happen that would normally make me irritated I'm in a good mood, and days that things are going along just fine I'm annoyed.

Today I am annoyed. Last night I was annoyed.

Monday when I walked out my door to find a flat tire on my car? Not annoyed. Frozen after walking to the store to get fix-a-flat, yes, but not annoyed.

It is difficult to fully place where all of this bad mood is stemming from, but I know part of it.

Last night I got to go to dinner with my roommate from my freshman year of college. She's a fantastic friend, and even though we absolutely suck at keeping in contact, we'll always pick up right where we left off any time we see each other. She's engaged to her boyfriend of nearly nine years, and I found out last night that they're getting married the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2012.

I am absolutely thrilled for them, truly. This wedding's been a long time coming, and the two of them have made it through some ridiculous shit to get to this point. I guess I'm just at a place where, goddammit, I am sick to death of going to weddings alone. It makes me resentful, but it's a frustrating type of resentment since there's not an actual object to direct my loathing towards.

My lovely friend Katie quoted the other day from some TV show or another (not sure what it was), "Trust me, anger always feels better when it has a target."

I want a motherfucking target.

I don't want to have this inexplicable rage and frustration bubbling just below the surface that causes the little things to actually bug me. It helps when I can go run or lift or something, but honestly, I can only do so much of that, and given how sore I am today after yesterday's workout, I probably won't be able to push as hard tonight as I otherwise would have.

What I also don't want is to inadvertently take it out on other people. It's not fair to anyone else who might cross my path, so I end up shortening conversations or taking longer to respond than normal. If I just keep to myself, no one gets the brunt of my bad mood but me, right? That's logical.

I know that the restless and interrupted sleep I got last night isn't helping things. There are few things more frustrating than waking up for no reason at 345am and then end up unable to fall back to sleep for the next hour, as you lie there and count down to how much more sleep you COULD be getting if only you fell asleep rightthisverysecond. The traffic on the way to work this morning also didn't help.

At this point, I know that trying to force myself into a good mood isn't going to work, that I need to just acknowledge that it's just not a happy day, roll with it, and move on, but christ, this shit is getting old. Less than 24 hours, and it's really fucking old.

Fuck.

/end bitchy rant