story of a girl

What's Going on?

2011-08-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

Marvin Gaye's buttery voice lilts between my ears.

What is going on?

As I suppose is typical for most people, in most lives, at most times, my ability to suitably answer the question varies tremendously depending on which of the infinite sectors of life it's directed at.

Let's start easy.

No. 1: Update on K, the wonderful tall monk

Sonam, K and I returned to the TB hospital the day after our first attempt was foiled by Gai Jatra. We waited quite a while, saw a Nepali movie on television in a waiting room full of masked and coughing people. Eventually K's name was called and we headed back to a small room to consult with a pulmonologist. He was clearly overworked, but I was very impressed with the time he took with us, patiently, or sometimes not so patiently, but still answering all of my questions and detailing his thoughts and plan of action. The good news: DNA amplified sputum smears, much more sensitive than the ones done here in Boudha, confirmed that K does not have TB. Cultures in 8 weeks will provide further confirmation, but it's safe to proceed with the assumption that he is clear in that regard. The chest x-ray, on the other hand, was concerning. We had a second xray at the hospital, along with bloodwork, and K was diagnosed with a secondary lung infection. More importantly, it was noted that his blood sugar, supposed to be controlled with drugs, was far too high. This is probably affecting his susceptibility to infection, as well as the metabolism of the antibiotics, and certainly has something to do with the leg and foot pain he's been complaining about. The great news is that this can be regulated. We came back to the clinic and have spend the rest of the week consulting with doctors here. K is now on tranexamic acid and the bleeding has stopped; he will come to the clinic Sunday for a diabetes management course including dietary strategies and foot care and his meds will be adjusted according to follow up blood work in the next week. He's on a new antibiotic for the secondary infection, and we'll start supporting with acupuncture and herbs next week as well. I wouldn't call him 'cured,' but definitely on the up and up.

He's made me think a lot about the importance of a primary care provider. There have been a lot of good physicians attending to K and doing their best to evaluate and help him, but each in their own segmental role. His problems are reparable, but in order to identify and address them, it is necessary for someone to take responsibility for K, as a whole patient and whole package of unique human physiology. Health care systems, whether in America, Nepal, or on the moon, will always be inadequate if they fail to acknowledge the importance of the primary care provider.

No. 2: Strikes in Nepal

Apparently transportation strikes are a pretty frequent occurrence in Nepal. We had one last week, and another yesterday.

It's sort of amazing. The usually shockingly chaotic roads are emptied. It would almost seem peaceful, if one could forget about the political chaos behind it. Anyway, it's kind of weird. I just heard that the strike is off for today, but the whole situation is unresolved. I hope that talks can proceed without violence, either physically or politically, and meanwhile, I hope that the businesses and transportation systems civil society depends on are able to function. It's strange to just wake up in the morning and find you're stuck.

Which brings me to No. 3: The Dissolution of Everyday Life as I Know It, not to be dramatic or anything

The neat little life I thought I had back in the states is sort of dissolving. Truly, dissolution seems to me an apt description. I have this image of the way a solid object actually dissolves: at first the solid just kind of sits in the liquid, and then maybe some bubbling starts, or the liquid starts to change colors, and suddenly you realize there's something going on. Before you know it, the change is fully under way, picking up speed, and there's fizz and everything's transforming, and it's all sort of neat to look at, but it's also just chaos, and it's hard to envision what you'll be left with when it's all over. I am trying though. I am holding on to this image of what remains when the reaction is complete: something altogether new and whole, again still and calm, just unmistakably different from what you began with.

I reiterate what I have said, over and over, and over again.
Life is good. But sometimes I worry that 'good' sounds constructed, like some imagined and imposed and altogether pleasant little framework to stretch one's experience to fit so that you can bask inside of it. This is not what I mean. Life is real only in so far as one dwells within it, steps outside his or her framework and surrenders him or her self to the endless interplay of elements beyond his or her scope of control. And so I add, if you are really seeing it, if you are really asking yourself what's going on, life is good, but it is also never, ever boring.

: )

Cloudy

2011-04-05T06:17:00.001-07:00

I have likeness to a cloud.

I am interesting to people, in this way I do not understand. I have this form, an illusory presence, that draws people to poke and prod, reaching for something substantial in my composition.

Inevitably, I fail them as their sweetly seeking hands grasp nothing but...nothing. I feel apologetic for this, but I do not know how to be something more than what I am.

2011-03-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

Acupuncture Near and Far

2011-03-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I am thrilled that I will have the opportunity to spend four months in Nepal this summer providing acupuncture treatments at an integrative medical clinic. I will be working at the Shechen Medical Clinic in Boudha with a team including four Nepali family docors, a physician specializing in Tibetan Medicine and herbs, a female gynecologist, a homeopathic Nepali doctor, a laboratory technician and visiting foreign doctors and therapists. The clinic provides quality care to a large community of people, including many refugees, regardless of religious, ethnic or political background. We often speak of a healthcare crisis within our own country; to put things in perspective, there are 5 physicians per 100,000 people in Nepal, versus 230 per 100,000 in the United States. When a physician can be located, proper medicine is often inaccessible due to availability or cost: 82% of the population live on less than $2 a day.

The Shechen clinic provides general medicine, pharmaceuticals, laboratory services, tuberculosis services, orthopedic care, reproductive care, homeopathy, Tibetan medicine, acupuncture, dental care, hospice care and counseling for HIV/AIDS patients and their families. Services are provided to over 3500 patients a month on a sliding scale cost basis; in the case of very poor patients, all medical care and medicines are provided at no cost. All patients are treated with care and respect.

Obviously, the clinic, in aiming for a humanitarian gain, operates at a huge economic loss. It is sustained by compassionate and generous donations of money, time and energy. In a country where the per capita annual income is $240, every little bit helps. It is my intention to raise $1,000 to pay for the much needed supplies that enable medical providers to deliver care. An amount that may be insignificant to us can make a striking difference in another's quality of life. If you are able and interested in contributing to this very worthy cause, it would mean a great deal to me and with any luck at all, an even greater deal to someone else I've yet to meet. Thank you.

Be well; do good,
Kelsey

Something to Think On

2011-02-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

"He's still going to make those hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less that some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world. I think he undertakes what, earlier today, he called 'journeys to the sick' in part because he has to, in order to keep going. 'That's when I feel most alive,' he told me once on an airplane, 'when I'm helping people.' He makes these house calls regularly and usually without blan witnesses, at times when no one from Harvard or WHO can see him kneeling on mud floors with his stethoscope plugged in. This matters to him, I think- to feel, at least occasionally, that he doctors in obscurity, so that he knows he doctors first because he believes it's the right thing to do.

If you do the right thing well, you avoid futility. His patients tend to get better. They all get comforted. And he carries off, among other things, images of them and their medieval huts. These refresh his passion and authority, so that he can travel a quarter of a million miles a year and scheme and write about the health of populations. Doctoring is the ultimate source of his power, I think. His basic message is simple: This person is sick, and I am a doctor. Everyone, potentially, can understand and sympathize, since everyone knows or imagines sickness personally. And it can't be hard for most people to imagine what it would be like to have no doctor, no hope of medicine. I think Farmer taps into a universal anxiety and also into a fundamental place in some troubled consciences, into what he calls 'ambivalence,' the often unacknowledged uneasiness that some of the fortunate feel about their place in the world, the thing he once told me he designed his life to avoid."

(Tracy Kidder, in Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Dr. Paul Farmer

(Does this count as poetry?) A loosely associated collection of words.

2010-12-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I swear
this sadness just envelops and eats me
the way clouds move in and devour dancing shadows with dark
or a phagocyte engulfs a poor little lost virus.

It gives no warning
It has no cause
It is disobedient to my will,
or I continue to convince myself that it is,
and I resent that, or I resent being lied to.

I think of playing one-on-one with my dad.
Sometimes he would back off, essentially ceasing to defend.

In that moment: There is no obstruction, no reason the well executed jump shot should not arc perfectly and gracefully into the coveted hoop; swish- the peaceful sound of a thing falling into place as a result of a motion well done.
But I hesitate. He looks at me and says, 'C'mon, whaddaya' want?!?'

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay.
My oh my what a wonderful day.
Mr. Bluebird's on my shoulder.
It's the truth, it's actual, everything is satisfactual!

Wishful thinking, that is.
I feel the inverse. A plain brown sparrow on my shoulder, perhaps.
Probably the left one, the sinistra one
It's the truth, it's actual, everything is just as it is and I need to see more.

Maybe that sparrow will be kind enough to share his wings and help me get somewhere where I can see more clearly.

Three Things

2010-12-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Three things ricocheting around my head:

ONE. (from Adam D., Counting Crows)

All my friends got flowers in their eyes
But I got none this season
All of the last ten years' blooms have gone and died
Time doesn’t give a reason
Hey baby, do you ask yourself sometimes what you need to be forgiven?
Everything that you've ever done wrong
Is the reason that I'm driven
Straight to you.

Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I get my ends and my beginning mixed up too
Just the way you do
Thought if I told you
You might want to stay for just another day or two

It's just like answers
that come in small packages
that go in the mail

Waiting for the trains that just never come
Beginning to believe in
the disappearing nature of the people we have been
We have begun to change into the worst kind of people
So unkind
Oh apologies, no apologies, this apology
Doesn't describe the way it feels to feel for you.

Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I find myself slowly disappearing too
Just the way you do
I thought if I told you
You might want to help me to remain with you

I just wanna stay for a little while
I wanna stay for a little while

There's a night life falling down on me
I just feel like a change
Beneath the sun in summer,
a sea of flowers won't bloom without the rain
But oh, this desert life, this high life
Here at the dying of the day
I wasn't made for this scene baby
But I was made in this scene
And baby, it's just my way
I don't want to go home alone, I wanna come on home to you

Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I line my sky with all the silver I can use
Just the way you do
Thought if I told you
You might want to stay for just another day or two.

Isn't that just like disappearing into the sum of yourself
and the person you are disappearing into
it's like one plus one equals nothing at all
one plus two equals nothing at all
one plus me equals nothing at all
one plus you equals one plus you equals you and you and you and you and
nothing at all
nothing at all

TWO. (from Caitlin Thomas, Leftover Life to Kill)

"You have only to look at my hands; the very reverse of Dylan's' square, gnarled, awkward, unwieldy, chunks of flesh; as though born to the soil, and only fit for planting spuds. And the nails: a shameful reproduction of my mind: torn, bitten, bleeding; the dead skin unfurling in grotesque corrugations. My worst vice at the bottom of all my troubles, and disquietingly part of me. And I fail to stop; and God knows I've tried."

THREE. (from Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life)

" 'The better news is that Fire Bugs don't last long,' he consoled the young fellow. 'They blaze brightly, but they burn out young. Also, they blow with the wind. This way, that way; it's in their nature. No constancy of purpose...' "

(If I put them here, out of my head, can I get some sleep?!)

Sleep Tight

2010-12-02T20:44:00.001-08:00

I can't sleep, AGAIN. I think I am not trying hard enough. Jumping out of bed to reply to an email from your mother-in-law, then register for a race, then going back to bed, then getting back up to look up lyrics to Collective Soul songs and get on Facebook does not constitute a true effort to sleep. Sometimes, seriously, what is my problem.

How tired I get of myself! If you want more sleep, sleep. Good gracious. GOOD NIGHT.

Somehow I think that I think if I write the words down, it will increase the gravity of my self command, and I'll have to obey it. It's worth a try, yes?!?

'the more you know who you are, and what you want to be, the less you let things excite you'

2010-11-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

“Do you even want to be married to me?” It's a fair question.

I tell him the truth, which is not surprising, but probably part of the problem. “I don't really care.” I hesitate, before explaining. “I think everyone makes a bigger deal out of it than they should. All I want is, in the end, to have made more lives better than I've fucked up. I just don't think it probably matters that much if I'm married to you or not.”

I have been thinking lately about 'M.A.S.H.', that inane game all children play, and about the absurdity of the choices we construct for ourselves. Who teaches us that game? Mansion, apartment, shack or house. Movie star, doctor, homeless or teacher. Two kids, twenty kids, no kids or three. Dog, cat, flying squirrel or hamster. Good god, you can settle the whole story of your life on a piece of notebook paper!

“So is this it? We're done? You want our marriage to be over?” he asks, the space between the words dripping with the stagnant sweat of utter frustration.

“I didn't say that.” I say calmly. “I use words very precisely. You shouldn't quote me if you don't remember what I said. Your premises are wrong.” I know the calm is disturbing, but I can't help it. I think of a perfectly still pond, where you can throw stones, and occasionally one skips in kind of a cute and interesting way, but eventually, like all the others, it just sinks.

“Fine. What did you say? You never wanted to be married?”

He is wrong again. I wouldn't have said that, because it's not true.

“You're a fucking idiot.” I tell him, placid as ever.

It is silent. The eye of the storm, or the swallowing of the stone.

One breath, two, three. A fourth.

“You're mean. You're a cruel person, and a terrible human being.” He says it, even though he doesn't believe it. I have been working for an hour to deserve it, and now that I have finally earned the condemnation, it hurts. It's the first thing that I have really felt for days, and as I roll as far as I can to the edge of the bed without falling out, a warm tear slides out of my eye. Gravity draws it slowly down my cheek, then off the edge of my chin and onto my collarbone, where it splashes and then dissipates, all traces of what it was melted back into me via invisible pores. I enjoy the sensation.

Five minutes later, I wonder if it is cruel to touch him. I'm not wearing a shirt, and I feel like that gives me an unfair advantage of sorts. It emphasizes his inability to be unfeeling. Instead, I ask. “Do you really think that?”

Medium size pause.

“I think you're cruel.”

My pause.

“Do you think I'm a terrible human being?”

I draw in a breath as I wait for his reply, and I laugh inside because the audibility of that breath is so melodramatic.

“No. I think you're an amazing human being.”

I don't pause. “Do you think I'm good?”

One moment, two, three.

“I think you want to be. I think you really, really try.”

A tear rolls out of my right eye. I always cry four or five tears our of my left eye before the duct on the right side kicks in. “I do,” I tell him, and I mean it, and then I roll over and touch my forehead to his shoulder.

Five minutes later, I ask him if the fact that my foremost thought is a wish that I'd recorded the past thirty minutes in order to accurately write them down makes me a terrible person.

“No.” he laughs back, and I can't tell if he's kind of sad or not. “No, it doesn't.”

“I should just get up and write it now, but I'm really tired,” I think out loud. “I guess that's how I know I'm human.”

“You're human.” he says. And we go to sleep.

Sunday night I saw a great bassist play as approximately one third of a jazz trio and I found myself thinking a lot about why such a big goofy instrument speaks to me so. First I thought of Ganesh, the elephant- headed Hindu god, and then Eyeore, the hooved Milne god. Then the poetry in my head started up. The bass, and Eyeore: perfect parodies of ennui, I thought. It's Geothe's Young Werther and Sofia Coppola's Scarlett/Charlotte in Japan and reality's Christopher McCandlesses and Elliot Smiths and aching beauty and beautiful aching and the vast nothing where the two meet; it is me, and the way I have been laughing through my tears for as long as I can remember. But then: to permit myself to drown in it, like I sometimes feel I might, would be such a self-indulgent waste. And lest I abandon my undying commitment to truth and pretend to be completely selfless for even a moment, I must also note, I fear that drowning in ennui would also probably hurt a lot, and accomplish very little.

If the only thing that matters is doing more good than damage, it looks like drowning is not an option. Werther killed himself, Christopher might as well have were it not for Jon Krakauer, and Elliot's story is the saddest I know. Bill Murray saved Scarlett. God send me a Bill Murray.

I wonder: Who doesn't need a Bill Murray?

Or what if [could it be?], it just occurred to me, maybe some people sometimes need a Scarlett?

What if we need each other, and we just don't know where or when. Wouldn't that be a neat little world.

2010-11-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

Requesting some enlightenment.

So what if I am the emo princess?

2010-11-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

I'll make my way.

Joyce-ian

2010-11-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

he calls me 'the emo princess'
he is not dumb enough to call me 'his emo princess'
(this ain't his first rodeo)

he says i have a fucked up sense of humor.
waffles are hilarious
all those little squares
but pancakes make me cry

what?

my ears are burning.
it that psychosomatic
or maybe is it somatopsychic?

i don't really want much from anybody
which makes me slippery.
did you ever mix up corn starch and water when you were a kid?

i just want to twirl around
in my new boots,the cognac ones-
how do you say that word?

im sort of mad at jt;
if the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time,
why didn't you tell me the secret of enjoying the passage of time?

lame, man, lame.

A new one for today

2010-10-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

Now you're caught in between what you can't leave behind
And what you may, what we may never find.
So fly, so fly, one time.

Theme Song for Today

2010-10-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

I didn't necessarily pick it, it just is.

Rue de Cascades

Why Dreamers Make Poor Partners

2010-10-11T19:19:00.001-07:00

It was suggested to me tonight that my own 'what if's' will always be nearly irresistible to me, and consequently, that I will always resent those things which feel as though they bar me from pursuing exactly what I want, when I want. I think this is insightful and has quite a bit of truth to it.

It was also suggested to me, by someone else, that I am immature. I tend to agree, but I don't feel bad about it. In some ways, I strive to be immature; in fact, sometimes when people suggest 'growing up,' especially in that snarky tone often reserved for the admonition, it sounds to me like they're saying, 'Give up. Compromise who you are and what you're seeking and embrace folding.' I don't wanna.

2010-10-11T06:01:00.001-07:00

Adam gets it.

Lifey

2010-10-10T21:50:00.001-07:00

I am tired. Life is lifey. It is late; my husband is asleep in bed, and I am AGAIN watching YouTube videos of various music I have loved at one time or another while eating popcorn and raisins. I think I probably ought to go to bed, but you know, this popcorn is pretty good, and all the old Hotel Cafe videos are pretty rockin. (I'm onto Rachel Yamagata now...)

Oh, husband is awake. "Baby, can you please turn that down?!?" It is a reasonable request, I admit.

I really ought to go to bed. Oh, but first here is Ben Harper at The Hollywood Bowl.

Good god, I need to get a grip. YouTube, and moreover, music, will be here tomorrow, after I have slept.

I am confused. I have great compassion for those people who love me, or who have loved me, because I can only imagine what a confusing person I am to love.

I also have this inexplicable lump on the back of my head, and I wonder if I am dying. I mean, I know I am dying, because I'm alive right now, but I wonder if I will die sooner than I once thought.

Maybe. But meanwhile, tomorrow is Monday, and life awaits, and right now...it is time for bed. Still confused; confused, but...happy. Perhaps crazy sounding...but I reiterate, happy-ish. And that counts for something, eh?!?

G'night.

2010-10-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

And one more treasure. Seriously, god how I want to be where this is.

2010-10-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

A treasure.

I have a Dali tattoo on my wrist.

2010-10-08T20:13:00.001-07:00

Tonight I told somebody I felt like I was in a surrealist painting. This is true, insomuch as I can imagine what such a thing would feel like. Sometimes I feel shockingly stationary in the midst of an overwhelming general buzz.

I wonder if I am the weirdest combination of soul and outward body out there. Maybe.

Delve

2010-09-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

There are those moments where you are overcome with the certain realization that none of it matters. A certain danger exists- you teeter on the edge of nihilism, heels on solid ground, but toes reaching out into the abyss, unsupported.

And then your saving grace floods through your being, a torrent released from a heart leaked open. The one thing that does matter, that we are here on this earth only for one another, for one simple purpose: to over and over again bring each other safely back to the surface so that we might delve deeper into ourselves without fear of becoming lost.

A Lesson from Goldilocks

2010-07-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

To perform well in American academic settings, children learn a number of little tricks with the intent of making the most of an inherently limited base of knowledge. Test-taking strategy 101 obliges he or she who is being tested to answer first the questions to which the answers are known, and then go back and work through those that are more difficult.

This works fairly well for the standardized tests that mark a child's progress through the primary and secondary school system, and, I would even venture to say, most of the tests anyone encounters in the course of a college education.

It occurred to me yesterday, though, that many of us grow into adults and try to apply a similar strategy to daily living. This is not to say that there is no wisdom in this approach, as there most certainly is insofar as it keeps one from becoming paralyzed, caught in consternation, confounded by one of the particularly puzzling challenges of modern life while the ceaseless race - to what?!?!- continues, less one fool stuck on question number three.

But I also see a problem that inevitably arises when one persists in such a manner. The easy questions are in endless supply. Coffee or tea? SUV or compact? Red or Blue? White or wheat, shoes or sandals, East coast or West? Sure, we can make them difficult, and lord knows, we do. Why?

When we are busy with the easy questions, we have a good excuse for leaving the difficult ones unanswered. It is our own personal form of jingling the keys in our pockets, a determined attempt to keep everyone, even ourselves, convinced that we're busy. 'Sorry, soul,' we tell ourselves, 'I am busy looking for crackers without trans-fats and checking my stock quotes and fantasy baseball team. Who I am, what I want, your siren song, will have to wait until tomorrow.' Then tomorrow comes and- surprise!- we end up mired in a flood of all new and equally pressing easy questions, and the difficult ones can once again be justifiably left unresolved. It's not like- heaven forbid- we weren't doing anything. It's not like we were holding still, thinking, reflecting, growing into ourselves. We were doing things! If you don't believe us, just look at our lists with all their pretty little check marks.

People, and for that matter, a culture- which, let it be known, I do not exempt myself from- that does this for a long enough time will inevitably be left with quite a collection of big, difficult questions accompanied by equally big, empty spaces where the answers ought to be, and all the easy answers in the world won't fill in those spaces.

What we forget is that not all of the questions are equal in value. In a culture that values productivity and efficiency above all else, the ability to assign value to anything based upon quality is often lost in the pursuit of increasing quantity. Quality and quantity are similar goals in that they both require time and energy. More importantly, however, they are opposite, synergistic, yin and yang. A successful culture, or a successful life, requires a balance of the two. In Japan, there is a traditional way of growing fruit where all but one developing fruit are cut from a branch. Obviously, this results in a much diminished quantity of fruit, but the quality of that fruit is unsurpassed. When a farmer focuses on getting as many apples as he can from each tree, the number of fruits harvested is of course increased, but the quality of each fruit suffers. Ever had a bad apple? No number of those could take the place of one perfectly crisp one. That said, it is of course an equal but opposite travesty if so few apples are harvested that no one gets to taste one at all. It would seem to me that we ought to strive for a middle ground. Not too many apples, not too few. Like Goldilocks, we need to find the porridge that is juuuuuuust right.

Coming up with a million easy answers is useless if the questions are worthless. In order to produce anything worthwhile, be it fruit or an original idea, an innovative thought, we have got to slow down enough to recognize the worth of the questions to which we apply our time and energy.

Steady as we go.

Running in Circles

2010-07-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

I am twenty five. My life is still very much in flux. As evidence, here is a true story in which I just starred: Upon opening our little post office box this morning, crossing my fingers, as usual, hoping that some exciting and lovely surprise might reveal itself as I shuffle through the bills and catalogs, I found instead a notice informing my husband that the annual fee for rental of said post office box was due.

Like the obedient and upstanding citizen I am, I promptly traversed my way over to the counter, where there was no line (this made up for the lack of exciting and lovely surprises!) and told Pam, our ever jovial and sweetly matter of fact mail woman that I'd like to pay the renewal fee. She gave me a simple option, but it threw me for a loop. “For six months or twelve?” Without thinking, I told her I'd just go ahead and pay for the whole twelve, but no sooner had the words left my mouth than I second guessed myself. Twelve months! A lot could happen in twelve months. How could I say we'd be in the same place, using the same post office box?!? Now, I have no ostensible reason to believe we will be relocating in the next twelve months, but in all honesty, the possiblity seems as likely to me as not. I don't really have a reason to think we won't move. It all depends, I start thinking, and I realize that just the night before I'd sagely advised a friend trying to make decisions about his career and lifestyle that the right decisions for him would depend on how life unfolded. My use of the adverb 'sagely' is half self mockery, as it suddenly occurs to me what a passive, reactive way it would be to live completely dependent on the unfolding of life; but equally important, it is half self-respecting, as I think it is at least as important to respect the world's plans, even as you make and execute your own. That's what makes the game fun, after all, isn't it? Challenging, yes, but fun too- there's a reason Smooth Sailing Interstate Highway never sold the way Chutes and Ladders did.

And that, ladies and gentleman, in a nutshell, is my mind: Just like that, because of a bill from the post office, I found myself moved by the very concept of possibility. In many ways, I believe it is one's approach to possibility that separates childhood from adulthood, and my own approach to possiblity that is my greatest strength and weakness. Ah, the possibilities!

“Wait!”I interrupted Pam's ringing up of my bill, a little too desperately. “The childishness with which my life is still in flux is far too great for me to commit to twelve months of being in the same place!”

Yes, I feel a little sheepsih admitting, I did actually say that, verbatim. Pam looked at me strangely, and suddenly I felt a little strange. “I'll just do the six months for now,” I told her, and then hastily added, in the style of explanantion, both reasonable and minimally informative, that I have discovered to be most socially acceptable,“we're thinking of buying a place in the next year.” This satisfied her, and I went on my way, my strangeness once again safely tucked inside that cloak of nonchalant urbanity I find myself, to my consternation, donning more and more often.

As another poignant example, just this morning, on my way to this coffee shop to sit and write, I told an acquaintance on the phone I would be busy writing for the next couple of hours. When she asked me about it, I told her I was 'doing a little bit of freelance work.' It's just a little simpler, I rationalized, than explaining that I am in fact spending precious time just sitting here writing for some purpose unbeknownst to me beyond the fact that I can't divorce myself from this part of my identity that is a 'writer,' whether or not I actually make an attempt to have readers. Is that even possible? It's sort of like a chef pouring his heart and soul into elaborate and delectable meals, but not serving them to anyone, or a painter who stores his masterpieces in a closet jammed between a set of ski gear used once two decades ago and a cardboard box filled with old receipts. It's possible, I suppose, but mostly, it's just stupid. The two are not mutually exclusive.

But I am afraid. Not so much of rejection or failure, but of rejection or failure officially rendering time and energy wasted.

I am, by nature, interested. In everything. In college, I became aware of the astounding frequency with which the words, “That's interesting” crossed my lips and consequently convinced myself I needed to find a new adjective, until I realized that the reason I said it so often was because it was actually true. I do find myself constantly interested. If I had been born ten years later, I almost surely would have been one of the eight million children now prescribed Ritalin for my attention deficit disorder. I sometimes find myself absorbed in things like the slightly irregular shape and texture of a viridian leaf, and the unique pattern of the arc it semi-circumscribes in the gentle but insistent breeze that warns of a coming summer storm. Honest.

A mind that works this way does not always have an easy time of it in a society wherein the standard pace of functioning requires daily consumption of caffeine. (Caffeine is after all, pharamacologically similar to a mild dose of Ritalin.) I think it is also true, though not necessary, that individuals with minds that tend to zero in on experiential details with more voracity than usual are more likely to feel a little lost or overwhelmed by the rapidity with which the world changes, particularly if one's world exists within a society that worships at the altars of efficiency and productivity. Somewhere around late teenage-hood I began to connect my feelings of lostness and overwhelmedness to my strange way of seeing, and by the time I was 18 and a half, beginning my second year of college in the great city of Los Angeles after a year spent experiencing and experimenting a bit, I was pretty damned sure I better do what I could to cure myself while I still had the chance. Basically, I had a flash of foresight wherein a glimpse of my potential future self as an ever volatile, unpredictable and above all, strange, writer scared the living daylights out of me, and I chickened out. The first week of sophmore year, I dropped all the English classes I had enrolled in and switched to PreMed.

And here I am, six and a half years later, sitting at Starbucks biting my nails and pecking away on my MacBook with tears in my eyes thinking how futile the effort to escape oneself is.

Vertigo

2010-06-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

I have gnawed my fingernails down to truly pathetic stubs.

I hate that the hands don't lie: I'd rather not admit it, mostly because I'm worried it might be something to worry about, but much of the time, I look around at my world and feel overwhelmed.

No matter how good things are, I find myself worrying. About health, about money, about oil in the ocean, about plastic, about pesticides on my fruit, about the number of miles on my car, about my old friend I've lost touch with, about my cats being overdue for a veterinary appointment, about the bottom drawer of my dresser that's broken because I stuffed it too full of running clothes. Mostly, I worry about the reality of my carving out a life where I won't have to worry.

The irony!

It's kind of like strapping on a knapsack full of boulders and then diving to the bottom of the ocean in hopes of escaping the water. It is possible to imagine that there'd be a depth at which it ends- in fact, there is such a depth, but we know better than to believe it can be transcended, no matter the determination with which one pushes against it. The only way to escape is to drop the weights and turn around. Beat the vertigo, and get yourself up to the world above for a breath of fresh air.

A Recipe

2009-10-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today I went running in a forest. Lately, I have been thinking about the way deer move while I run, and I like thinking about my feet being light and graceful. [So perhaps I am wishful?! I have always had a good imagination. ; ) ]

But what is better than light and graceful feet?!? A light and graceful heart! Mine feels that way now, and I am not imagining it.

I feel content and full of joy and wonder at the world.

Now I am reflecting on three thoughts that have been cooking in my mind today.

(1) From Born to Run: Caballo Blanco's instructions for running fast: Easy. Light. Smooth.

(2) John Stuart Mill's idea that happiness is a paradox, never found when it is pursued for its own sake, but always as a side effect of the pursuit of some other.

(3) Lao-tzu: Who can make the muddy water clear? Let it be still, and it will gradually become so.

Funny little mix of ingredients made something that thoroughly satisfied my hungry heart : )

The Space Between

2009-10-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

I tried to explain it to Cliff the other day: "I am really great at swinging from exciting tree to exciting tree. But, inevitably, there comes a point where you have to settle down a little bit. And it is there, in the space between exciting point A and exciting point B that a new place feels lonely."

I understand this. I expected it. It is the lull, the tough part of a transition where the shiny newness loses some of its appeal and the desire for the decidedly un-shiny, worn and comforting ruts of daily routine wells up.

It is important to me to greet each day with a certain zeal. One of my greatest strengths as a person is a sort of child like revelry in the realm of possibility. For a long time, I carried around a little card emblazoned with the words of Mr. Walt Disney: "It's kind of fun to do the impossible," and I fully believe that. Life is fun for its little conundrums.

As a child, I did things like cut up pieces of paper in order to put them back together, or write out long division problems that would take multiple pieces of paper to work out (and then I took them to my teachers to 'check;' dear god, I'm sure they loved that). I had a subscription to PuzzleMania magazine, I begged my mom to buy me workbooks from the school supply store and one very memorable time, I memorized the spellings of the ingredients on the back of a bubble bath label. (Gee, I was a fun kid...)

As a grown up...Did I just write that?!?! I recant the utterance of said subject. I am NOT a grown-up. Who is ever really a 'grown-up' for that matter? The addition of the 'n' to 'grow' implies that the growing process is complete, and I am fairly certain that the growing process is incomplete until the cessation of life. We are, therefore, 'grown-ups' only upon death...

Anyway. As someone aged beyond childhood, I still have a passion for a good puzzle. Put a good chunk of incomprehensible data before me and I'll sink my teeth in like a ladybug on an aphid. (The summer I was six, my best friend and I managed to capture a dozen ladybugs. I was very concerned about what they needed to be fed, so I did some research and found out they thrived on aphids, which just so happened to thrive on the very roses my mom grew in her garden! Roses= lady bug food!)

In fact, here is a confession: A year or so ago, while waiting for my graduate school advisor to return from a quick errand, I gave in to the urge to peruse the folder she'd left lying in front of me- the folder containing my confidential student records. On the left side was my application, along with three reference letters submitted by various mentors of mine. Curiosity and a shameful, yet inescapable and quite acknowledged, human tendency toward self interest won out and like a greedy little pig stumbled upon a pile of fresh slop, I scanned the contents. Each letter was kind- thank you, mentors- but, as I was a fairly typical early 20s graduate school applicant, fairly typical. There was, however, one remarkable thing. Each of those three letters, from three different advisors of mine, who had never met one another, much less conferred regarding the particular subject of yet one more requested letter of recommendation, chose to convey one message loudly and clearly: Kelsey thrives on learning new things.

And so (a great deal of anecdotal evidence later) it is. I like the new and interesting. I am forever and extremely interested.

I like this about myself, usually. But. (and there always is a 'but,' isn't there? Is that cynical? Or just true? I don't mean to be cynical...) A big part of growing for me has been learning to temper that magnetic attraction to the new and interesting with a certain contentedness with that which is still. It is a challenge for me to cultivate and refine my interest in the things which endure, to find, amidst all the new and active and yang, a place of quiet, established, still yin. And yet it is within this quiet, still place of receptivity that I have learned the most about myself, about the world, about living. This yin part of life is very much necessary to balance a yang energy with the potential to propel one to either great success or great turmoil. Yang is the momentum, but yin guides the movement.

Which brings me to what I meant to say in the beginning here, the point. I am still quite happy to be right where I am, in every sense of the word, right now. I am finding all sorts of fun little challenges, creating my own PuzzleMania, swinging from tree to tree. But (there it is again, the 'but...') the time has come to focus some more on establishing a comfortable place in the space between, and it's hard for me. Patience is required- when you're me, letting things happen tends to take longer than making things happen. ; )

The good news? I like a challenge.

To be continued.

Gone to Carolina

2009-09-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Life is good here in the Carolinas... I have been meaning to write about it, but I have been busy:

There is a small(ish) park with a couple miles of trails right up the street from me. I run there often, and have been noticing big, squishy mushrooms, as well as some smaller varieties, hiding out near the roots of many of the trees. Within my first 48 hours here, they had inspired me to start talking about foraging and researching mycology. Why? A fair question. And the answer: I'm not really sure. There is just something so beautiful and satisfying to me about the encounter of anything in its natural element. Why is a jungle safari neater than the zoo?

I have loved the idea of growing my own food since I was small, but foraging takes it one step further. A couple of Google searches and a few visits to mycology forums- yes, they exist- later, I learned that it just so happened that North Carolina had a bumper crop- is it still a crop if it isn't cultivated?- of wild mushrooms this year. Blame it on the rain. After the rain must come...mushrooms. Unfortunately, I also found that mushroom hunting is kind of risky business. To clarify: not the hunting itself- mushrooms are not real aggressive creatures, being plants and all, but rather, the consumption of said bounty. As I do not wish to either hallucinate, become seriously ill, or die, my dreams of gathering baskets of mushrooms and creating some delicious wild ragout have been put on hold. Every time I run in RW (the park), I still see visions of ragout, or maybe some nice pasta dish with a little rosemary...but, at least until I know what I'm getting into, I've resigned myself to heading back down the hill toward town sans dinner from the woods.

Town...the town I live in is is like a giant Central Park, only with a village- where I get to live!- embedded within. I go up every afternoon (ish) to get my mail from Pam at the post office. I like to stop by Poppy's and get some coffee from Linda when I can too. Last weekend we went up there Saturday, and I spent three hours doing the crossword in the NY Times magazine...and that was fine! Just meant our bike ride happened at 5:30 p.m. instead of 9:30 a.m., and it happened to be a beautiful evening anyway.

The day after, we woke up to head out to my favorite place yet here, Uwharrie National Forest. The place is like FernGully, but in real life. No matter what the people close to me will tell you, I am in fact a simple person. It is hard for me to feel that I lack much of anything when I have a big FernGully forest to run around in for a morning.

In terms of my business, I have made some really good connections here and will start treating patients in October in a facility and situation I am really excited about. Meanwhile I am getting forms and handouts organized, and catching up on a lot of healing and wellness related reading, remembering how much I love what I am making a career out of.

And the best part of all of this: I am here, sharing it, with my best friend.

I do imagine at some point the current overflow of goodness in my life will have to meet an ebb, but meanwhile, I will bask in feeling blessed, and hope I can share some of it with the world through the way I live. Perhaps when my good ebbs, someone else's good will flow, and they'll return the favor!

Anyway. Yesterday was a great day, capped off by an evening run before dinner. I did a few mile repeats, and then decided to walk a loop, at which point I encountered these.

Now. Lest you think I have become careless, let me elaborate. I brought them home. By the time Cliff walked in the door, home from the gym, I had laid them all out and photographed them each from several angles. Because he is wonderful, and we are still completely enamored

with one another (You're here! YOU'RE here!), a sweaty embrace preceded the wayward look at the mushrooms spread out on paper towels across the counter. Before he could even ask, I assured him I wasn't going to eat them: "I don't even have health insurance! What if I needed to go to the hospital to be... antidote-d?!? I'm not crazy." He seemed relieved. "No," I explained. "I am going to catalog them all, get someone to help me identify them, and spend the winter learning how to forage properly, so that in the spring, I'll be ready! I saw some potentially great berries and greens out there too..." He looked at me kind of quizzically and then said, "Cool! That sounds like a great project."

This response met with my approval, and I grinned back, purely, simply happy. Happy with him, happy with myself, with mushrooms and with life. Suddenly, in this moment, I had one of those funny experiences, where you are yourself, and yet you see yourself from outside yourself all at once. And, yes, funny it was. But then I saw something else, something still sweet, but non-trivial and deeply wonderful: me, in my element. And it was beautiful and satisfying. : )

New York, I love you. Today.

2009-08-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

Last day in New York, New York:

0500 up and at'em to have a little tea and stretch before I run up to Prospect Park to say goodbye to Felix and the cycling crew.

0545 on Felix's Pinarello, a bike which cost twice as much as any car I've ever owned, doing a lap with the group, because Felix insisted : )

0630 walk home. It's a beautiful day.

0730 camera out, walking back up to Park Slope by all my favorites, The Gate, S'nice, etc.

0830 Gorilla Coffee- where else to take in the sounds of Brooklyn coming to life one last time...?

0930 on the two

1000 union square. nice walk over to caravan of dreams on 6th and avenue a

1030 $15 tui na massage on 8th street and avenue a. amazing.

1100 brunch at caravan of dreams with christine. tofu scramble with fresh curry; coconut berry chia smoothie.

1400 walking back to the F. delicious pear from a street vendor, eaten while people watching on 14th street

1530 home. tea. change, head up to 7th avenue to pick up some OLD pictures I'd almost forgot I'd taken to be developed- they are entertaining and wonderful. then to Jackrabbit to pick up new Asics Nimbus.

1630 Prospect Park to help with 5K benefit for wonderful, amazing Greg. 1000+ people show up to support him in his fight against cancer. feel the love.

2030 Out with Tracey and Chad. cucumbers and tomatoes and carrots and tabouleh and baba ghanoush from Brooklyn Pita. Ami, owner (and my buddy) gives us all baklavah, dripping with honey, for dessert.

2200 home to shower, finish final packing.

Goodbye New York. I've loved you too. : )

More pictures: keepitrealnewyork.shutterfly.com

Pony Wrangling

2009-08-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

It's hard to know where to start here. The times, they are a-changing, and of course that means there ought to be ample material to muse upon. Problem is, I can't seem to settle on just what shape those musings should take for public consumption, or for that matter, for my own consumption.

I tend to write when I'm feeling contemplative, and I tend to be contemplative when there is not a lot else for me to be. This does not currently apply: there are approximately eight million little things for me to do, to be doing, and they're all bouncing around in my head like a herd of wild ponies- only they seem to be blind ponies, with rather disturbed herding instincts resulting in a situation where they all gallop in different directions and entangle themselves with one another rather than come together in any semblance of cooperation. So not really much like ponies at all I guess. Anyway. In my attempts to wrangle up some of these non-ponies, I have noticed something. If you look closer at the herd, it is not as it seems. A good 80 or 90 percent of the ponies are actually ordinary, good natured, steadfast little beasts who would contentedly graze were it not for the other few: a small minority of completely wild, blind and hotly wired creatures wreaking havoc. I've been trying to manage the herd by just grabbing a pony here or there, working with it a day or two and sending it on its way. Naturally, the ponies I'm catching are the ordinary, relatively tame ones, while the real firy ones remain at large. I am distracting myself from the overwhelming task of dealing with the rogues by occupying myself with the neat and sweet manageable thoughts. What I'm beginning to realize though, is that no matter how many tame, manageable ponies I deal with, the herd will remain wild and unmanageable as long as the wild and unmanageable minority continue to run amongst it.

Wow, is that abstract enough for you?

Put another way: One of my teachers, a jovial and very intelligent Chinese man, often compares American and Chinese psychology. In America, he observes, when someone is very anxious about a certain thought or idea, it is recommended that he confront it, that he focus exactly upon that very thought or idea and in so doing, learn to understand and deconstruct the anxiety he feels. If he were Chinese, Dr. Chen says, he would stop thinking the thought that was making him anxious.

I have been trying the Chinese approach, if a little half heartedly. Rather than stop thinking precisely the thoughts that were making me uselessly anxious, I just went on ahead and tried to stop thinking entirely about the topics to which these thoughts were related. There is great merit to this approach, for a while. But it turns out that eventually, especially if your anxiety is related to certain things like where you are going to live and what you are going to do every day, those topics come up.

At which point you quickly distract yourself with a whole bunch of other menial tasks- I need to learn how to make Chinese oyster sauce, I need to get more incense for the room in the front of my apartment, I need to recheck the 50 albums on sale for $5 from Amazon. And so on, until you are exhausted, and no longer need to think about anything, because you are asleep. Again though, the problem ultimately arises when you realize you are now not just anxious, but exhausted and perhaps even a little more anxious...but at least you can make some oyster sauce.

I guess the idea is that ultimately you get tired enough of all the time-wasting you're doing, and just buckle down and deal with the wild things, and lo and behold, the herd gets straightened out. At least, that's pretty much how it works for me.

This was going to be a post about something entirely different. But it's not. Suffice it to say, I've got the herd all in order now, and I feel really, really good about where it's moving. Those ponies are wild, but strong, beautiful, amazing when they're steered in the right direction.

(Afterword: Sometimes I reread what I've written and it shocks me. It is strange, the experience of encountering my own attempt at translating what goes on in one teeny little section of my head. Afterward, I usually understand exactly why I've felt exhausted. Internal reflection is a good way to check in when you don't feel...right. Look in, check in, make an adjustment, but then, don't waste too much time, and get on out. Onward, upward, OUTward. I'm out for a run, wish me luck in eight million degree and humid New York, and then try not to get jealous of me in the yellow house with CENTRAL AIR next week...)

Love to the world, and best of luck with your own ponies, wherever they may roam-

haikus

2009-07-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Picture perfect days

Sun smiles, I reciprocate

Just...how can I not?

Still. Lucky girl spoon

Stands strong alone, but is less

her fork complement.

Spoon without a fork!

Gets the job done- but poorly.

Best meals/lives need both.

A fish unsettled

And some/any where with you

Is the sea to me

you've got to feel it...

2009-05-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

It is only the unexpectedness- the shock, in fact- of this panic that enables me to see the humor in it. Absurdity lightens a heart too heavy, so sodden with the sinking in of an impending break from that which it has irresponsibly intertwined itself with, that it might otherwise be unbearable.

(Not to be melodramatic or anything. No. Yes. Allow me to continue.)

Still, I feel it sink. Someone I love once told me when I was sad, to stop and look at the world and all the people in it. "Don't just see it or them, " he told me, "but really feel it..." Something about it struck me as important way back in the day, but I didn't really get it. I get it now. And now, I feel it, and when I think of leaving it, the sinking happens. Rocks in my throat, then weighing heavy, heavy, heavy on my heart until whatever it is that holds it up seems to collapse from underneath...

But then: Then there is this voice of reason, this part of me that clears her throat and beseeches the little heart part to recall such a cold and lonely winter, so many apartments- a particular one with bedbugs, and another with crazy landlords- or maybe there were a couple of those... The inevitability of 'track changes' on the F during the commute home after the longest day ever, trying to hurry through Penn Station to catch a LIRR train at 5:30 on a Friday, reaching a point (a point which, it might be noted, I am still at) where an apartment seems perfect regardless of the fact that it has no closet or bed. The resigned acceptance of conversations punctuated by pauses for trucks, emergency vehicles or whatever other variety of noise invades the space in which words ought to float.

And it is this that I have suddenly fallen in love with, despite nearly three years of determined distaste for it all?!? Here-in rises the absurdity, and then its acknowledgment, the taut lifelines of rationality catching wild little heart just in time to rescue it from the aforementioned plummet.

But then, again: I am in the park, I am on the subway, I am walking down the sidewalk, and I feel it, and...

I don't know if I can leave just now- just now, when it's getting good.

Sybil Ludington 50K + Bronx Duathlon

2009-04-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was sort of a 'double header.'

I ran the lovely- and also hot and hilly!- Sybil Ludington 50K Saturday, then jumped up Sunday morning at 3:30AM in order to grab my bike and catch the subway up to Orchard Beach in the Bronx to do the Bronx Duathlon. I milk these weekends off of school for all they're worth... : )

Thoughts on Sybil:

Hot! I have been complaining about the tenacity of winter, as it has stubbornly lingered around well past its designated cutoff, but Saturday, I was put in my place. The course was entirely on roads- the route Sybil Ludington, 16 year old girl Revolutionary War Hero, rode to rally troops to resist a British ambush- and also amazingly hilly and shadeless. It was hot enough, in fact, that one girl passed out from dehydration/heat stroke and ended up requiring IV fluids...she ended up much more healthy by the end of the day, with a little fluid in her, but her trip to the hospital speaks volumes about what kind of day it was out there.

That said: it was a well run, great race! I had the pleasure of riding up with Nelson and Gisele, two friends of a friend who happened to be heading up from Brooklyn as well, and meeting the two of them was a highlight. Wonderful people to share a wonderful Saturday with! The race was, at certain points, kind of brutal feeling, and my favorite quote of the day was Nelson's on the way home:

"You know, when it was so hot and I was climbing up the millionth hill, these two cars passed in the opposite direction...In the first, there was this rather overweight man, and his pretty overweight son; and in the second, this fat woman..."

(At this point in the story, I am somewhat apprehensively anticipating where Nelson is going with this...)

Then he continues: "And I looked at them, and I just thought, 'Wow. What am I doing with my life?!?! I should be eating ice cream...yes, eating ice cream and getting fat...' " I told Nelson I thought he should eat some ice cream, although he's going to have to make some life changes if he's really going to try to get fat.

Anyway. There is something sort of peculiar about doing a 50K on roads, particularly roads which are not closed, and thus, continue to bear the rest of the world's denizens in their comfy climate controlled cars, on their way from here to there, exerting no more effort to cover 31 miles than a little pressure with the right foot, and perhaps a little steering of the wheel now and then...

In a trail run, or even a road run on closed roads, it is easy to sort of lose yourself in your own purpose, to feel that this next 31 miles of trail/road really...matters. When carfuls of families on their way to do Saturday errands are zipping past, it keeps things in perspective a bit more.

Logistical things:

I only had to stop to use the bathroom once, at about Mile 14! And it was a porta-potty, and there was toilet paper (although, of course I had my own tissues in the pocket of my handbottle in case.) That was exciting for me, usually most of what I drink goes right through me. I have some weird, non sweating, fluid metabolism things going on. So maybe it was the heat, but whatever it was...it was wonderful, in it's own, strange and personal little way. (I don't know why I always feel compelled to report on the restroom breaks during my races. It's a weird quirk I have. I wish I could give you some good, necessary justification for it, but really...I don't know. Just is what it is, and I guess it's a habit now. Maybe next time I'll leave it out, just to keep everybody on their toes. You know, wondering and all. Maybe.)

Miles 9ish to 12ish were on Dixon Road! YAY! (That is my last name.) That was one of those little mental boosts.

I ran with Rob from upstate, who completely rocked his first ultra, from about Mile 14 to 20. Great company. He got to see me trip over some air and meet the road very close and personally, and also do my jaunty little sideways step up some hills when my quads just didn't feel like taking them head on. I felt cool... no, actually I felt like me, which I have, of late, decided is just not that 'cool' and which, quite frankly, I like anyway!

At about Mile 19, when the heat was really starting to set in, there was a guy- Tony, I found out when I met him after the race- wearing a Badwater Tshirt. I didn't say anything to him at the time- I think I was a little in my own head already- but my mind completely locked in on that shirt. And it didn't feel so hot anymore... I spent a good mile or so thinking about how, compared to Badwater, Mother Nature was practically air conditioning this course...I love the little tricks our minds find to keep us chugging along. : )

Some mistakes:

My beloved, newish Mizuno Inspire shoes are too small. This is slightly shameful, given that I work at a running shoe store, where I go through a reasonably intensive process to make sure people get in the best possible shoes for themselves... Anyway. Turns out, even if you are an every other brand perfect size 9, and have been for years and years, just try your shoes on, and CHECK for a thumbnail or so in the toe before you buy them and start running an ultra in them. Duh. It was pointed out to me that they were too small a week or two ago, after I had already run enough in them to make them unexchangable, but not enough to really feel it, at which point I insisted, optimistically, they'd do just fine. Flash forward to Miles 20 thru 31 of Sybil...not so much. So many downhills, so much jamming toes against the end of a shoe, ow, ow, ow. Anyway, lesson learned.

Second kind of dumb mistake: I dropped two packs of Luna Moons and some Nuun tablets, which meant all I had to eat was a flask of EFS gel. 400 calories worth of gel, mind you, but I started sipping on it at Mile 10 or so, and at Mile 22, it was gone. As I cruised into the mile 21.8 aid station and realized I'd just taken my last 'sip,' I was a little concerned, but somehow, I convinced myself 9 more miles would just fly by...I'd be fine... that said, there was also some food at the aid stations, but none of it really looked palatable to me- oreos, pretzels, some other cookies...it was just too hot. I did grab a few dried apricots at 21.8, but I didn't want to eat too many (fiber, fiber, fiber- wonderful in everyday life, not so good as quick fuel...) and by about Mile 23, I was hungry again. There was a water/gatorade only aid station I skipped over right there at Mile 23, and by about Mile 23.2, I realized I had done something stupid. Now I was not only craving some calories, I had nothing to drink. And here I was on the longest stretch between aid stations, after having already run 20+ miles...oops. The first time during a race when I've ever really been unprepared fuel-wise. I hit Mile 29, and told the one lone guy manning the table there, "Thank god you're here! I f***ed up..." That was about all I had the energy to say, while I downed three cups of gatorade- which I can't usually stomach, ick, sick, syrupy filled tummy!- mostly for the calories, because the thought of cookies or pretzels was just not. Gatorade usually sort of makes me queasy, but I have to say, I was hungry/thirsty enough at that point that it wasn't so bad...

Anyway. More importantly, I felt good to go, ready to attack those last 2 miles, and bring her home. Done. Second woman overall, AGAIN. I've got a thing going on with that. Whatever. 5th person overall. 1st me overall, and you kind of do these things for that reason anyway, yes? : )

And, before moving on to the duathlon, I feel I must do Tony Galfano, Sybil race director, justice and mention the incredibly delicious broccoli rabe and eggplant sandwich he had waiting for us post race. Mmmm...

Then Sunday. I got a bike a month or so ago, and in the spirit of getting out there and riding it, found this little event a few weeks ago. The website said there was morning-of registration, so I figured I'd see how I felt Saturday before committing. Ha. That was a lie. Without admitting it out loud, I'd already decided I was gonna do it. Saturday would have had to go really, really badly in order to mess it up...

Thankfully, it didn't!

So Saturday night, I put some speed laces in my Kayanos, laid out my newish Zoot shorts, and the same shirt I'd worn at Sybil (what, I REALLY like it...!), got my bike ready, googled a subway route up to Orchard Beach, and set the alarm for 3:30.

Crazy, some people are saying. Crazy, a little part of me is saying. But so worth it. It was fun.

My legs were tired on that bike, yes. But I repeat, it was fun.

I feel like I ought to write more about it, but...I don't know. Maybe later. Basically, I was nervous, it was all a little new and foreign, but that was kind of cool! I like learning as I go. And so far- with very much thanks to friends and friends of friends who have taken the liberty of advising me and answering my many, many cycling related questions- I am learning as I go, without many major mistakes. That is satisfying. Satisfying and cool.

(Although, as a semi-digression, here is a conversation I had Monday:

ME: People keep seeing my bike and my Chrome bag, and telling me they're cool. I feel like such a poser! Like, they look at me and think I'm cool, and I want to tell them, 'No, it's just me, imitating cool people...don't fall for it...'

TC: Awww....is that really how you feel?!?!

ME: Well...yeah! I mean...I'm a poser! I'm faking them out...

TC: No! I mean, if I didn't know you, I would definitely think you were, like, a cool biker chick...

Please note, the condition italicized for emphasis: if I didn't know you. Is that not the definition of posing? So, in conclusion, I am a really goofy, kind of dorky cyclist, currently playing it off as a cool biker chick. I wonder how long I can maintain the facade...)

Okay, and completely switching tones again (if this were a pop song, we'd need a few measures of a corny bridge here, to take us back to the serious, contemplative verse. But then again, note that I try to avoid ever being too serious. Most of the time I'm serious, it's tempered by another facet of myself going, 'No, seriously...?'):

But anyway.

The implications for life I'm currently contemplating as a direct result of my experiences last weekend.

When I am running a long way, I am completely committed to positive thinking. Thoughts about pain, tiredness, the [long] distance yet to go are filtered out, they occasionally occur to me, but they just sort of...bounce away before they can be internalized. When I am running, I find that I can not tolerate negativity in those around me either- it just feels like poison. I am constantly reminding myself how strong I feel, what a beautiful world it is, how lucky I am to be out enjoying it, etc., etc., etc, and in my heart, I feel that these things are true. I love what I do out there.

I am reading Christopher Bergland's book The Athlete's Way, and he describes this phenomenon in a way I love:

When I do Ironman races, I swing from positive thought to positive thought. I scan the horizon for any potential thought or vision bombarding me and attach only to things that hum of positive emotions and lock in to that thought. When that stops humming, I look for something else to latch on to. This neuronal choir is a group of neurons chanting in unison above the din of the crowd and could be seen on brain imaging technologies as a specific tapestry of neurons.
If a negative thought enters my mind, I make it very slippery. I imagine covering the neurons in Teflon and chicken fat. Happy thoughts are covered in Velcro and magnets and Superglue. They stick to my brain.

This passage resonates with me because of it's familiarity. I am lucky to be quite adept at constructing the mindset necessary to get through, and moreover, enjoy a long, hot, hilly run.

But as I think more about it, I realize that so far, I still have a lot of work to do in carrying over that skill set to life. But what a life I might lead if I could successfully do so! To be fair, I think my general outlook and approach to life, the positivity with which I try to approach it, has greatly improved as I've gotten a little older. I tend to think that running has helped me with this, but I guess I won't ever really know for sure.

Last night though, as I found myself traversing a particular portion of the longest race of all- the life one- I realized I could do a little better in my choice of which thoughts to latch on to. When I choose carefully, when I make a conscious effort to care for and cultivate the good, the negative, self-defeating thoughts just get edged out. I want to do better at nurturing the good, because really, life is just so much better that way.

(As an afterthought, I would just like to add this. See?!?!? See why I do this?!?!? To all of you naysayers who can't understand the joy I find in all these miles, do you see what I see? Somehow, someway, this is my classroom for life... ! )

Happiness is not a destination, but a means of traveling.

To embracing the journey,

[New pictures from Sybil up at kellebelleruns.shutterfly.com. The guy in many of the pictures is Nelson and the woman he's kissing on the head at the end is his wife, Gisele. The dogs in the middle are Luna and Lobo. They drove me up to Carmel, and they rock- Nelson and Gisele, that is, not the dogs. I mean, the dogs rock. But they didn' t drive. Anyway, I hope to have the privilege of Nelson and Gisele's, and even Luna and Lobo's, company again one of these days! Also: I apologize, in advance, for my choice of outfit. I look sort of like Catwoman. I don't have a full length mirror in my home, so the pictures were sort of enlightening. I promise I'll never wear it again. ; ) ]

2008-11-27T17:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get an idea, a feeling, a thought. Something strong and beautiful, complete. I have the urge to write it down.

For whatever reason, I don't.

I try to talk about it, to no avail. The words I am thinking are spoken, but what I hear sounds entirely different from the voice in my head.

When this sensation really gets to me, I write, and I feel better.

2008-11-11T09:21:00.001-08:00

I read this somewhere else once, but it's perfect:

There are some people who take the heart out of you, and there are some people who put it back in.

My heart feels full and well cared for, sitting just inside right in its little place of honor, looking out, shining out at the big, good world.

2008-11-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

I am writing a story:

I lived in New York once.

Looking back upon those years, I think what bothers me most is my inability to decide whether the attribute that defined them was intended to be a blessing or a curse. It may have been the greatest and most generous gift ever bestowed upon my meek shoulders, or conversely, the most maliciously and spitefully cast burden they have ever had to bear. And now, a decade later, I remain at a complete loss when it comes to determining which.

Remembering the woman to whom the origins of that blessing/curse can be traced fails to eradicate any of the unsettling ambiguity of its nature. I wish, now, that I could recall the conversation I'd written off as meaninglesss banter at the bar- where had she said she came from? North or south, and when she had said it, had she meant to reference the plane I'd so innocently assumed, the plane upon which we'd happened to meet? Or somewhere...else, transcendent, beyond, unknown?

I wish I could remember the color of her eyes, the inches of her height, the shape of her breasts- anything, anything at all, besides a disturbingly- but beautiful nonetheless; in fact if anything, only the more attractive for its strangeness...the word enchanting comes to mind, and in retrospect, I wonder how literally it might be applied- disarming smile, and her voice. There aren't particular words I recall, but just this certain lilting quality- like an ocean, carrying you far, far away, a lullaby sweetly sung under her breath...or was it a hex, hypnotically hummed? And how, how is it possible, that I, the recipient of the resultant beauty/beast, am unable to name its nature? What I can say is that the moment that peculiar melody entered my ears, and thus, its effect entered my life, I became a man defined by sensations the existence of which I had never, ever even begun to contemplate.

If I had registered a feeling of compassion or malice in that moment, although I would not have understood it, I would have eventually known what I needed to- that is, the nature of Her and the nature of what she'd instilled in me- but I felt neither. Instead, I was overcome only by an intense sense of relief. At the song's completion, she ran awkwardly/gracefully all at once, out the little door of my apartment, her purple designer purse flapping behind her elbow as if it bore some treasure- some identification, perhaps?- that, burdensome as it might be, simply could not be left behind. And that, a hand clinging to a flailing purple purse flying out my door, three and a half hours after I had first laid eyes upon the woman to whose arm it belonged, was the last I ever saw of her. As you might imagine, I thought it strange that such a moment would inspire relief. As the hand, the purse- as She- disappeared further and further into the night, or at least, out of my life, the relief faded too, pushed out by more appropriate and familiar seeming feelings- confusion, shock, even anger.

What I wonder, looking back upon that night in light of what I know about it now, is who that relief belonged to. Or perhaps a better way to pose the question: within whom had it originated? For that is what I would learn, how I had changed that night, the skill I had picked up that would shape me, make me, become me. From the moment I had heard Her song, the origin of an emotion ceased to define the limits of its affect. That is to say, whether the feeling began as mine, Hers, his, hers, yours- if it existed in my immediate vicinity, it was mine too.

Of course I didn't understand this immediately. I went to sleep that night confused and mildly bewildered, but prepared to move on and meet one more day in life as I knew it, come the sound of my alarm. For at least a little while, it seemed that this fate, mundane as it might seem, was in fact the one reserved for me, and I was okay with that, even pleased by it at times. I don't recall anything strange about that night or the next morning- some dreams, I guess, though nothing extraordinary, whole wheat toast, perhaps slightly burnt- but I liked it that way- apricot jam, a glass of milk to wash down a multivitamin, shirt, pants, tie, comb through the hair, shoes and jacket on, bag grabbed off the chair by the door and on my way.

The sidewalk was relatively empty, and as it turns out, most people on the sidewalk in Brooklyn at 7:15 in the morning feel something simliar- hurry, here we go anxious, brr-chilly!, let's go, let's go!- and because I didn't yet realize what had happened, and therefore wasn't yet attuned to the subtleties that had begun flowing into the amalgamated river of emotions that constantly coursed through me, I didn't notice anything- until I got into the subway station.

Calamitas Desitus

2008-11-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

I remember the thought first occurring to me: "Good god, I am like a tornado!" and I remember, more acutely, the eerie sensation of realizing just how apt the analogy truly was.

For as long as I can remember, and before that for as long as anyone who can tell me about me can remember, I have had a way- a sort of spectacular way- of rolling through the world as this massive swirl of energy and sweeping up people who just can't resist being drawn up close, or worse, sometimes sweeping up those who, by force of random luck (the irony of random forces! do such things really exist?!?!), just happen to be in my path. I do not believe in self-deprecation for the sake of itself, so allow me to say: I think there are some fantastic things about tornados; in fact, namely just that- that they are fantastic. They are strong and spectacular, unstoppable energetic forces. When a tornado decides it is going somewhere, it goes, damn it. And then, of course, there is the amazing phenomenon of centripetal force. It is quite literally, irresistible. And as anyone who has a penchant for tornado-ness will tell you- if he or she is honest- when you are at your full strength, roaring along, and just radiating energy, you do in fact acquire this certain irresistibility and it feels, quite frankly, intoxicating. And amazing.

But then, a tornado is a tornado. And there are reasons that people everywhere have systems to alert one another when one is coming through, that people turn and run and tuck themselves safely away upon a mere warning of one's approach. When all is said and done, the tradeoff for a few moments of intoxicating energy is a lot of loneliness and shame- such is the life of a tornado.

I imagine it is not difficult to see why acknowledging the appositeness of such an analogy to one's self might be somewhat startling. Startling, but true, and calamitas prone though I may be- or might have been-, I am- and always have been- essentially incapable of dishonesty.

Which is why, last night, when I got over the shock of the realization that I had grown up and changed, that somehow, someway, I was a tornado no longer, although there was the faintest pang of something that can only be called nostalgia, I felt decidedly...good.

Bella was never meant to modify calamitas, although I admit there was probably a time when I was unsure. I tend to think that when you are young and you exist as a spinning mass of pure energy, when you are unstoppable and you are as yet unaware of the consequences of your own force, such a mistake is easily made.

It is nice- really, deeply nice- to have realized the error, and to be freeing myself from it. I am calamitas desitus, becoming bella in a life defined fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.

And what is perhaps strangest of all, and almost certainly most wonderful, I am finally, finally, FINALLY learning to be comfortable without all of the spinning.

2008-11-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

Could I have been?

2008-09-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

ugh. my heart aches. literally and figuratively.

missing-ness

2008-08-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

im melllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltttttttttttttttttttttttinnnnnnnnng. just beneath my ribs, this little ball of meltiness dripping down, down, down into my gut where it coalesces, emptiness pooling into somethingness, a twisted up knot of missing-ness...

it sounds bad.

but its good, you know?

Burning Questions

2008-07-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

You know what I was thinking about today?

What would the Dalai Lama do if he had a bedbug infestation?

I'm sort of joking, but I also sort of really want to know.

Wild Hare

2008-06-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

The strange and familiar tones of my cellular phone seep through my ears and into my brain. I am no longer asleep. I wasn't really asleep before, but I wasn't really awake either. I reach out and pick up the black plastic object on my nightstand. It is emitting not only that irritatingly catchy little melody that is always stuck in my head, but also light- flashing, multicolored, first red, then blue, purple, back to red. I open it up, press the little green "TALK" button and put it to my ear. "Mornin'" I hear myself say. And then that voice is there, that voice which I love like none other. I am happy to be awake.

I am downstairs in the kitchen. Another familiar sound floods my ears; its character is sharply juxtaposed to that of the tonal melody that began my morning, but certain parts of it remind me of the voice. It is natural, calm, soothing, steady, even, alive. It is on the roof, against the windows, everywhere around. It envelops me and I feel safe. I look outside the windows and even though my ears have already determined it, confirm that yes, it is raining.

I decide to bake bread. There is a zucchini in the refrigerator, emerald green, rotund and beautiful, purchased from the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I wash it, the cool water refreshing as it glides over the squash and across the back of my hands, and then I am working, grating the zucchini into a glass bowl on the counter. I decide to chop some apples, add a banana, toast walnuts to fold into the batter that slowly comes to life. Now I laugh. It does not "come to life." Ah, the never ending melodrama of me. But, I protest, even as I laugh at myself, it does come into existence; it is created. I do not follow recipes; I cook by feel, on a whim. There is this very simple, but very real satisfaction in it...starting with this, with that, with what you have and working, peeling, chopping, toasting, stirring, sprinkling- tasting!- evaluating, considering, sprinkling and stirring again and on and on until you have, lo and behold, created something, created sustenance nonetheless!, and it is good.

It occurs to me that the telltale sound has ceased and I realize rain is no longer falling. The bread is baking and I am supposed to leave home in forty minutes to get my hair cut, but there is time. I pull on my favorite shorts, sports bra, and twist my hair off of my face and into a braid. And then I am moving. My socks and shoes are at home, indoors, and my feet and I have left them; my feet and I are here, gloriously outdoors. I am running. The earth is soft and forgiving, but strong and vital too, full of the life that the rain will eventually enable us to see. There is a hill, muddy and steep, and without the traction Asics has worked hard to deliver in the form of my Kayanos, I am slipping. It is frightening and wonderful. I bound downhill, picking up speed, my arms are out for balance and my eyes dart ahead, methodically scanning to find sticks and stones in advance of my feet. I am flying, free, and it occurs to me that in this moment, I hardly feel human. I can only say that I am indescribably aware that I am alive. Then I am at the bottom. I have made it, and the trail goes on, reestablishing itself as a dignified means of getting from one place to another, and I go on too.

My mom and I are on the way to the salon. Since I have been home, everyone has been telling me I need my hair cut. Everyone except one, and I like that. I think about how it feels to have someone love the things about you that you love about yourself. Maybe that is why there is this idea about loving yourself before you can be in love, because it is when you have found these magical things in yourself and then someone else sees the same magic that there is this secret, this most beautiful secret for two people to share. You see the magic in yourself, and you see it in someone else and together, you see it in each other, and in sharing it, it becomes real.

[I remember The Velveteen Rabbit, and this whole bit about "Love makes you real." and I am laughing. I don't remember the rest of the story so well, except that the boy has Scarlet Fever, a disease I stole for the protagonist in a short story I wrote for the Young Author's contest in fourth grade. I don't think it had very much to do with what I'm trying to describe at all. But maybe I'm wrong and I totally missed it...]

I tell Stephanie not to cut my hair much. A little trim will do. But the color: She will put in some blonde highlights, the usual. "And then here," I am showing her, lifting up the locks on top, closest to my face to show her a thick section just behind my left ear. "Blue," I tell her. She laughs and tells me blue is tough, and usually ends up looking grey-brown after a wash or two. "Purple? " I try. Same story. She suggests red or copper and goes to get swatches to show me. Copper is orangey and red is not 'enough.' But there is copper-red and it is intense and beautiful and firy looking and I like it.

An hour later, I am in the car with my dad. I show him my copper-red streak and he laughs. My mom thinks it looks like ketchup. My dad is asking me why I wanted this strange little streak hiding behind my otherwise classically golden tresses. "Does it mean something to you? Is it a symbol?" he asks. I laugh and tell him no, that I just wanted to do it, but a few minutes later, I am telling my mom, "It's my wild hare..." and I know that I am telling her the truth.

I am thinking about the weekend, and I am thinking about life and how I'm learning it, and wild hares and who I am. I am laughing a real, inside the soul kind of laugh, and I feel like me, and like life is good.

I think of this day and how sweet it has felt to me. I think of who I am, and of learning to balance what is wild and free with what is controlled and reasoned. I think of the way some people have the ability to help us find parts of ourselves that have gone missing. I look in the mirror, and there, peeking out, where you might not even notice it at first if you didn't know where to look, is my wild hare. It is boldness and courage and passion and strength. It is me, it is mine, it is real. I love it, and I am grateful for having had help in finding it. : )

2008-05-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

A very real and whole feeling 20 minutes a couple afternoons ago:

I am running in Central Park- a big old open field called Sheep's Meadow, to be exact. There are people scattered across the lawn erratically, all seeming content to soak up the sweet rays of early summer sun, if only for this moment. There is no path. Just this big open space, and I meander, even though I'm running, from one end to the other. Without thinking, I do a few ninja-style diving rolls. It feels good to move and leap and be alive. I am wearing a T-shirt with the perfect question printed across the front: "What's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?" I smile to myself as I ponder the question, but the sun is shining down and the answer doesn't seem to matter just now, so I roll up the bottom of the shirt to let my baby buddha belly soak up a little sun too and keep on keepin on. : )

For these precious moments, it's easy breezy.

2008-05-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

is it weird that i emailed this link to myself with the note "someday i will make these with my children." so that i could file it away in my gmail files for future reference?

what are the important things in life? i think aspirations of marshmallow animal making with my future children are up there...

An Observation within an Observation

2008-05-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a little burnt out lately.

[I now award myself a prize for understatement of the century.]

s.t.o.p.

2008-05-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

i want the world to stop turning. not forever. i just want things to stop for a second, just for one moment. please. if i ask calmly and politely, might the world grant my little request?

the thought of everything continuing to go on forward, moving and changing, the thought that everything is either coming or going and what is more, the knowing that it will never, ever- that it can't- stop, is more than i can bear today.

i want to write this feeling down. i want these words to capture this emotion; maybe if i can find the write words to hold it, i can let go of it myself. i don't know. these words don't seem right.

"s. t. o. p." i remember being in the car with bh, after preschool, pronouncing those letters. she was telling me that those letters made the word "stop" and i have this vague memory of confusion. i just couldn't get what she was saying, the whole idea that these sounds, in that order, would mean "stop." and if i wanted to say "stop," wasn't that easier than saying "s...t...o... p..."?

it doesn't seem like that long ago. ive been here such a short while, and there's been so much changing. i don't know where it's come from, or why, or what it means, and since I do know that it will never be satisfied, i have got to get past it, but right now, there is this desperate desire. i feel that i have never wanted anything so badly as for it all just to s...t...o...p. stop.

Montana de Oro 50K

2008-03-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna write something about the Montana de Oro 50K I ran last Sunday...but not yet. Busy-ness. But it was lovely. And hard. But in a good way.

The picture above is from the very end of the race, like the last 30 yards. The rest did not look like that at all: as in no roads, many mountains. My legs are really scratched up from a run in with a bush during an out of control descent, and I've got little poision oak patches, despite washing my legs off post race in a little creek with the special wash race director Sarah let me borrow. And I have some pretty good bruises on and around my knees, but those are mostly from the rock climbing gym adventure Kevin took me on last Monday. Anyway, my legs look...like mine, and better and happier to me than I can recall them looking in quite some time. They're quite lived upon. : )

2008-03-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

sometimes in the course of being what we're not, we become what we are.

On Ears

2008-03-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

I was really trying to think seriously about something that I believe is important this morning. But instead, as I strode down the sidewalk beginning another day of this life, all I could think of was my ears.

It was the breeze that got me started. Wisps of hair kept blowing around, all wild-like, getting in my eyes and my mouth. First I noted that my hair felt a little coated. Perhaps that new conditioner I bought isn’t so great. I should have bought a smaller bottle. I don’t know. And then, grabbing a fistful of wild strands and combing them back off of my face, silently imploring my ears to tame the unruly madness, I got caught up thinking about those ears.

What neat little hooks they are. I mean, our hearing evolved the way it did so that we could hear, but I wonder if maybe the shape of our ears is sort of a neat trick of evolution too. Really. Think about a caveman- they always have that long wild hair, and I think if two cavemen were out hunting, the one with ears shaped to be better hooks, to keep his hair out of his eyes better, would be more successful, thus feeding himself and his progeny more effectively. Same goes for being able to see predators. Really, anyone with long hair can see that this is probably true. The hook-like, unruly strand taming function of the ear is very important. In a time when survival depended on our being able to see and be aware without being distracted by things like wild hair, even more so. Seriously.

Good to have that figured out. How, oh how, would I go on were it not for that contemplation? I might have to think about...something. ELSE.

Welcome to my mind…

2008-02-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

Race Report= DONE!

Wow, so I never knew, even if you take forever writing something, it still shows up on the day you started the draft. So race report, completed today, February 8th, is on display below. Under February 02.

2008-02-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

Race report is still in progress, but I swear I'm working on it...

meanwhile, check out my new project: onthetwo.blogspot.com

Enjoy : )

Calico 50K

2008-02-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

It was in December that my gmail in box was graced with the following announcement and inquiry from my dear friends Scott and Masako in Japan:

"Well hello Ms. D,

Haven't heard from you so I thought I'd say Hel. Not much terribly new with us except that we are planing to go to So Cal in mid Jan. We will be spending a month there and if we can find CHEAP flights to Argentina or Spain, we will go there for a month. If not we will go to Mexico.... Speaking of which, might you be in Cal. between Jan15 and Feb15?..."

Considering the rather thorough job I've done of breezing through the vacation days allotted to Assistants in my office, the classes I have scheduled on weekends, and the money I'm purportedly saving, one could pretty reasonably argue that weekend jaunts across the country ought not to be part of my life at this time, and therefore, that I would not be in So Cal in January...but, thankfully, I've started to realize that the kind of life I want to lead depends upon knowing that the right decision is often not the one that first seems most reasonble.

Note that I do not advocate unreasonable decisions. Rather, I think that reasonable decisions require a thorough examination of what you really value. As such, the thoughts that went through my head as I considered the email above were something like this: I don't think there's much in life more important than the people with whom it's shared. Scott and Masako live in Japan, and although California's a ways from New York, it's really just a teeny hop compared to the hop, skip, jump, leap away that is Japan. My two older sisters both live in Southern California as well, and I had yet to see the house my oldest sister and brother-in-law had purchased and moved into almost a year earlier. Okay, and on top of all this, New York was (and continues to be) too friggin cold.

I reread the email, noting that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and therefore a long weekend, was coming up, then clicked open a new search on my computer and looked up flight info. Just to see what was available.

Now. Based on the previously stated values, one would think I had a pretty no-brainer situation on my hands. I agree. But somehow, three weeks and much tentative planning later, I was still ticketless. Part of my hesitation was a result of two logistical details of my life: First, that I can miss up to three weekends of school every trimester. Missing a fourth weekend means I fail automatically. Besides the whole not wanting to fail thing, I love my school, and I'm committed to getting as much as possible from my education there. I already had trips planned for two weekends this trimester. The second fact to consider is that I love to run. An hour in the park before work makes me a happier and better person, and I am grateful for that and how lovely it is. But to spend the day out running in a wild and beautiful place, to reach and strive and remind myself in an emphatic and literal way the value of keepin on keeping on, and moreover, to share this experience with a handful of like-minded others...just...makes me tick. In that way that everyone who is human and alive and endowed with heart and soul ought to tick, someway, somehow. These facts in mind, I try to fit in as many races as possible during those three weekends I'm not at school.

So it came to be that one morning in January, as I checked on available flights for the umpteenth time (still there.), I became a little infatuated with the possibility that there might be a race in California the same weekend I wanted to go see so many people I love. If there was, I told myself, I was going. A google search later, I'd come upon the Calico Trail 50K- as the website said, "It's not just a trail run- it's an adventure." I was sold.

It's funny to me the way things seem to sort of fall into place when you've made the right decision. There was a flight Friday night after work into Ontario airpot (just east of Los Angeles), Monday the 21st was a day off to celebrate Martin Luther King and there was a redeye that could get me back to New York early enough Tuesday morning for me to get into work. My wonderful, superhero boyfriend agreed that sure, it'd be fun for him to come along and do the 30K (he runs on occasion to keep me company...but, uh, not usually 18 miles...), his parents volunteered to pick us up from the airport Friday night, feed and house us, and provide us with a car. My sister and brother-in-law said they'd love to have us, as well as Scott and Masako, over Sunday night after the race; they, along with my other sister, prepared a veritable feast. Scott and Masako reserved the evening to share with us, and in doing so, completed my dream weekend. I've got good people in my life, no doubt.

So ten days out, plans were made. We managed a couple- or one- long training run, and Friday night, January the 19th, just before midnight, Kevin and I arrived at Ontario airport. His parents were there to meet us, take us home, and provide us with the requisite oatmeal bedtime snack. My dream weekend had commenced.

We started our Saturday right with homemade Belgian waffles topped with mango (yum!), then a stroll and lunch in lovely Claremont (hometown of Mr. Ben Harper!), and a hard-core Simpson family scrabble game. Seriously, these people don't joke around when it comes to Scrabble- consider yourself warned. Overall, a sunny morning in a wonderful place, low-key relaxation with wonderful people, and wholesome, plentiful, delicious food...can't ask for much better pre-race preparation than that. Kevin and I set off for Calico, the Avalon equipped with snacks and good music, bodies and minds stoked and ready to go. Adventure, here we come. : )

Ahem. First we had to find our hotel, which proved to be slightly more trying than we might have hoped. But no mind, the delay made the pasta dinner at the pre-race registration site all the more satisfying. There we met Ashley Baker and her boyfriend, also Kyle Hoang, Robert and another friend of his (also Robert?!?! I hate forgetting names...), who awed and inspired me with tales from the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. Someday, I thought, someday...

Sufficiently full of spaghetti/running fuel, and inspired by some amazing company, we headed back to the Ramada to lay out clothes, clif bars, coconut water, vaseline, tiger balm, hand-bottles, ginger candy and whatever else we hoped would help us through the following day's endeavor.

5:30 a.m. Sunday morning we woke ready for adventure, or at least some breakfast from the lobby. I was irritated that there were packets of oatmeal, but no hot water...geez. Tap water from the bathroom and a microwave saved me- thank some higher power, who knows how I would have managed to begin a day, much less a race day, without my oatmeal. I have sort of a love affair with the stuff going on.

It was cold outside. Damn. Where was my Cali sunshine?!?!?! Fortunately I'd brought my hat and I had insisted that Kevin buy us new $1 gloves from one of the street stands in New York- the kind that you can throw away once your blood starts circulating without much regret. Or besides throwing them away, you could use one to...more on that later. There was one thing though, and handling that became the first real memorable moment of the day. I generally cut the tip of the right index finger off of my running gloves so that I can keep my hands warm, but still mess around with my Ipod, should the urge strike. The new gloves, however, hadn't yet undergone the requisite alteration. I ran around the start some to try to locate some scissors, and finally found a volunteer with a pocket knife. "Oh, yay! I'm so glad I found you!" I exclaimed cheerfully. Holding up my gloved hand, I made my request, "Could you just snip off the tip of the index finger right there?" Got a pretty good look there. Much to the relief of the volunteer, I realized what it sounded like I was asking and corrected myself. Much better.

Ten minutes later, index finger freed, bathrooms visited, photo-taking responsibility assigned to Kevin, we toed the starting line. Actually we sort of stood there shivering, trying to borrow warmth from a small, but tenacious, pack of fellow runners. And then we were off.

The race started on a pretty good downhill road, the kind you just sort of cruise on. I took this opportunity to display my great running wisdom and expound to Kevin, who was, by the way, cruising along just fine, "Stop bracing yourself, you're wasting too much energy, and you'll miss the benefit of the hill. Use the hill, just let yourself go...if you fight the downhills like that, you're gonna get exhausted and sore..." Note that I include this lovely little display of my unsolicited advising only in order that I may make fun of myself in a paragraph to come.

Another important bit of conversation in that first 1200 meters was the one where I insisted on giving Kevin a detailed description of the meal my sisters were planning to serve when we got back to Orange County that evening. Those of you who have run ultras might understand the motivating power of visualizing that post-race meal, where you're showered, in comfy clothes, relaxing, reflecting on the day's highs and lows...or maybe it's just me. I like a good meal. : ) Enough so, in fact, that I also felt it necessary to jump into a conversation I overheard around mile 4 or so. Two guys were talking about the Spartathlon, and had somehow shifted into postrace recovery eating. In Greece. Yum. I couldn't resist the urge to announce my affinity for grape leaves and hummus...and tea and baklavah...and tabouleh...I think post-race recovery in Greece would be fantastic. And now those two guys know I think this as well.

Kevin had stopped to stretch a little (and probably also to let me go do my thing a bit...because he knows me) around mile two and I wished him good luck and went on. I also told him to "take pretty pictures," something that I later decided was not what I wanted my last piece of advice/encouragement/statement of support to be. Fortunately, he passed me a couple miles later and I was able to correct myself. "Hey baby!" I called as he passed , "Um, when I said 'Take pretty pictures" before, what I meant was..um...kick some ass!" He laughed and told me he knew. : )

Not that ultra running is about kicking ass. It's really not, at all, unless you're talking about your own. That's one of the things I love about it. Any competition between runners is far overshadowed by each runner's competition with himself. Twenty five miles in, when you can't see anybody else, and you're in the middle of the desert and it's getting hot and you're getting hungry and your legs are tired, and nobody would see if you stopped to take a rest, but something makes you want to see how many more steps you can run...

Of course, as I am always trying to explain to my non-trail-running friends, it's mostly not a dig-deep super challenge. It's mostly beautiful. Inspiring. An insistent reminder of a great big world out there, within which we are only a little bitty traveler. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right, don't forget to breathe and to take in the world, left foot, right, see how vast and beautiful it is, soak it up...

Not all moments of an ultra are so profound though. Like the eighty seven times (okay, well it seemed like eighty seven) I almost went off course because I was so busy "soaking it up" that I lost track of those damn little arrows intermittenly chalked in the sand. Or when around mile five, I realized I really needed to use the restroom. Actually, I'm being polite. I had no hope of a "restroom." I just needed to pee. It was then that I took a strong dislike to the barren, sparse nature of the desert. Modesty was going to be difficult. I also had forgotten my little pack of Kleenex. So. After a few miles of nagging discomfort, I rounded a bend with a rockface I could sort of crouch behind. Nobody else was in sight. And I used one of my $1 gloves. Afterwards I dug a little hole and buried that glove in the sand. Second "restroom" break was at an aid station around mile 26. I ran in, and volunteers offered me water and fig newtons. "Um, can I just use a paper towel and the area behind your truck?" I sheepishly asked. Fortunately they also had a little fire going in a roasting pit, so I was able to dispose of said paper towel without digging any more little holes in the sand. Profound and beautiful, not so much. Necessary, yes.

The course was hard. Really hard. The drop bag station at mile 18 was at the crest of a hill, and the wind was blowing hard enough there that I had to use by body as a sort of windscreen, crouched over my hand bottle while I refilled it with coconut water. I got some sand in my eyes as I was ran on, and this was the first moment where I recall thinking, "This sort of sucks. Keep running. If you just keep running, you'll get somewhere else, less windy/miserable." Then there was some serious downhill. Definitely not easy, but quite fun in a wild, adrenaline-y kinda way. Even as I used all the core strength I had to brace myself, I still felt slightly out of control. It was just that steep and slippery, and I was pushing forward with momentum. Halfway down I remembered the advice regarding hills I'd so matter of factly doled out to Kevin hours earlier. I hoped he hadn't listened to me. Anyone who had tried to "use" that hill, rather than "fight" it, would have been seriously injured. As a reward for making it up to the drop bag station, and then back down into the depths, the mad dash descent was followed by two or three miles of refreshingly easy downhill coasting. I zipped along and told myself I had made it through the toughest part. Feeling good...little did I know.

Then began the hills that would not end. I feel like I should have a lot to say about them, because they certainly seemed monumental. But somehow I don't have a lot of words. Just hard. Tough. Steep. Too steep. I did a lot of counting as part of the mental games I invent to keep myself moving forward. As in, "Okay, twenty five steps running earns ten steps walking. " Or "Okay, let's see if I can get to that cactus up there in 14 steps." There was one hill where I stopped in the middle, and I really wondered for a second how I was going to get to the top. It only lasted a second, and it made me think of life and the blatant parallels one can find in an ultra. It was hard, and a little part of me wondered if it might be impossible, but the only real choice is to keep putting one foot in front of the other as best as you can. I love the honesty and simplicity of it.

By mile 29 or so, I was ready to be done. This was a new experience for me. I kept thinking, and at one point, I told a guy who had run up near to me, "This isn't like me. I'm one of those blissful runners...but I just want this to be over. God, when is it over??!?!" He kind of laughed, and I just kept telling myself I was almost there, and reminding myself that in a few hours, I'd be relaxing with Kevin, Scott and Masako, and my sisters and brothers-in-law. A. l. m. o. s. t. T. h. e. r. e. ...

Part of the problem may have been that I had trouble eating during the day. I think I must have been dehydrated, because I usually get food down pretty well, but during the course of the morning, all I'd managed was a Clif bar and a handful of pretzels. And that didn't taste very good. I was disappointed by this, as I usually report that food consumed during a long run tastes particularly incredible, in a good way. Not this day.

At the end, we ran back downhill through a parking lot. I was pretty sure this was the end. I saw two women ahead of me, and I wanted to catch them. I remember telling myself that I had given it all I could, and that it was okay that I didn't have that final kick...it's funny, because I really did give myself this mental permission, and yet, some other part of me was still digging and my legs started turning over a little faster, and I started making up ground...and then I was gaining and I felt a little more hope, and then I was passing them...and then. That damn hill at the end. Turns out the finish line was not in the parking lot where I had assumed it was coming up, but rather at the top of an absurdly steep final ascent. As this became apparent to me, an obscentiy flew out of my mouth. I apologize for that. Somehow I made it up, and I kept thinking I'd be damned if those women I'd just passed caught me on that god-forsaken hill. I was either going to get to the finish ahead of them or collapse trying. So much for my whole "competition with yourself" ideals.

And then there I was. I love the final thirty yards of a race. I can't describe running those thirty yards except to say it is awesome, and when I use that word, I am never so regretful of the way it's real meaning has been diluted by overuse. If you've ever had a moment where you laughed and cried at once and felt the lightness of your soul reflected in your feet...even as someone who has experienced, and is in fact sort of addicted to seeking out, these thirty yards, words fail me. They're...nice.

Post-race was...long. I had a headache. I wasn't hungry, but I managed to eat a little, figuring I needed it for recovery. I met Michelle Barton- a sort of ultrarunning legend- and her daughter Sierra, and that was cool. I also congratulated Ashley Nordell, who had finished second among the women. I was impressed. I finished fourth among the women, second in the F 20-29 age group. Kevin also finished second in the M 20-29 age group for the 30K. We got matching trophies...awwww.

Post race pic:

The long part was when our drop bags weren't there...for, like, three hours. Calico, the town, isn't really much of an attraction. (In my humble opinion.) I was anxious to get on the road, on my way to family and friends.

We did get there eventually. It was...everything I had imagined and better. I'm tired of writing now, and really, there's not a lot more story to tell. Just know that after everything I said about the ultra, and what an incredible experience it was...spending the evening with my sisters and two of my heroes (Scott and Masako!) was the perfect finale. Kabobs, karaeoke and....love. I can't think of a way to say love that starts with "k," and in this case, using the right word wins out over my desire to alliterate. Forgive me, but "kabobs, karaeoke and love" it is. Anyway, the point is this: kabobs, karaeoke and love following a morning spent running 32 miles through the Mojave desert is a killer combo. In a good way. Dream weekend times 10. : )

Pictures: kellebelleruns.shutterfly.com

2008-01-22T13:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is sort of cheating, but until I get my own race report written, here's one from a guy who ran the Calico 50K Trail Run last Sunday too...

http://quadrathon.blogspot.com/2008/01/calico-trail-run-50k.html

He's a great writer, so enjoy. : )

My version coming soon...

2008-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

Today I put forth the conjecture that "love" is the single most misunderstood word in the English language.

I've been thinking about those four letters and what I want to say about them and how to best illustrate what's been bouncing about in my head, and I keep returning to this irritating little joke trapped somewhere back there in my brain among other assorted vestiges of childhood frustration (okay, my life wasn't that hard- but doesn't a little melodrama make for better stories? come on...).

Anyway, you know the one...where somebody says, "I looooooooove [insert inane item here: i.e. spaghetti, flip-flops, chocolate milk, colored shoelaces...]" and then somebody else feeling full of themselves teases, "Oh yeah? Yeah, you love spaghetti? You love spaghetti, do you? Well, then...then....then, why don't you marry it??!?!"

And the funny thing is that when you do this to a child, the response, almost universally, will be a moment of uncertain and utter confusion. "Because...well...because... you can't marry chocolate milk...duh, chocolate milk's not a person!"

Because obviously. Obviously, because, well, that's not what he or she meant. But...there's just something about it that's enough to throw somebody small a little off balance...because it doesn't make sense.

I guess I'm still somebody small sometimes. Because I was just noticing that sometimes, even if you substitute a human being for an inane object, the old joke is just as absurd. There are some human beings whom I love, but would not marry for obvious reasons. But then there are these other, seemingly eligible people, people who I love, who could conceivably become my spouse, but just...don't fit...that confuse me.

I have been confused because I really thought that that sentence, "I love [whomever]," needed to apply to one person, and that that one person would then be the appropriate person to exchange a ring with, and that would be that. And, um, that wasn't working out or making sense.

And I got fed up enough with trying to make it make sense that I just sort of figured I must be different than all those people who choose partners or something, and that was that.

But as is so often the case, as soon as you decide that that is that, you notice that this is this and this is that.

So this is this:
There is somebody in my life who makes it better. Somebody who drives me crazy sometimes, who I can pick apart and find faults with when I've really determined to, but who nevertheless, I like to be with. Somebody who is on my team, who complements me and supports me when I get in over my head (which I somewhat sheepishly admit to having occasionally done... that said, also somebody who kind of likes it when I drag him into things a little deeper than he might otherwise have gone.) Somebody who isn't the same as me, but gets me as well as anybody anyways; and somebody whose differences I learn from. Somebody who has strengths that meet my weaknesses and weaknesses for my strengths to meet. Somebody who makes me laugh, who gets [most of] my jokes (I still don't get it why not everbody can do this; cmon, guys, i am funny...), who listens attentively, or at least pretends, to my rambling stories, who thinks I am most beautiful when I feel most beautiful, when I have just finished a run. Somebody who makes me look forward to challenges, because I'm part of a pair that can take on big stuff. Somebody who has somehow become such a part of my life that I took him for granted until he almost wasn't. And then I realized that that would have made me very sad indeed.

And this is that:
I still don't have a handle on what l-o-v-e specifially means. I can say without a doubt that I love: my new running shoes (with the orange laces!), crest lemon toothpaste, angsty California boy rock music, Bouguereau paintings and the kind of moments where I'm moved to dance in that special way that only I can (if you've seen it, consider yourself among the priveleged). I don't understand all the little nuances of this word, how to quantify it or how it can apply to all these vastly different things, not to mention a whole lot of vastly different people in my life. Whatever. I know it's good, and to give up all that love would be bad, but that sometimes it really makes things confusing. But all of that confusion aside, there is this one thing I'm pretty clear on. And it's important.

Don't you wish I would tell you? : )

2007-12-20T11:39:00.001-08:00

Argh, argh, argh.

I left my house this morning, grabbed my Metrocard out of my wallet to swipe at the 116th Street subway station, immersed myself in a good book for the thirteen minute ride...and then arrived in my office and rifled through my purse to discover I was walletless. I hoped perhaps it had fallen out, been rescued by a good samaritan and was on a journey back to me...but alas, a couple hours later my credit card company confirmed to me that somebody had been making charges throughout the city all morning. Fantastic!

So that's not so good. But cards are canceled, fraud reports filed, etc. Cash, Metrocard, train tickets, health insurance card, etc. will be replaced. I'll use my passport for Identification when I fly this weekend. And I'll finally buy a wallet I liked better than my old, ugly brown one. (Not to be ungrateful for what I had...I'd still take it back!) I'm a little sad that the card I get punched when I get Tasti-d-Lite frozen yogurt is lost, because I think I had almost earned (I like that you "earn" something by eating frozen yogurt) a free cup. Damn.

Anyway, here's my favorite part of this whole little story. As I mentally catalogued the various cards and notes I had lost, I realized my membership card to the Buddhist Center was lost. And, I confess, here is the thought that briefly flashed into my poor little ego-burdened brain, "My Buddhist Center card! Ahhh. I hope whoever took my stuff feels bad when they see that."

Mmmhmmm. The irony is not lost on me. That compassion meditation's really workin out for me.

No, but seriously, it counts for something that I caught myself and laughed doesn't it? Oh, life. : )

2007-12-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

Another morning of madness here in the office...

Actually not so. Really, though, I shouldn't be so cavalier in my comments about boring mornings, given that yesterday I was quite thoroughly occupied, even for an hour overtime, when I was supposed to be out running. Just ebbs and flows. And really, I can't complain...ebbs are nice here and there. I kind of ebb and flow myself.

With all this said, this morning is, how might I say it, a particularly dramatic ebb. Because I'm me and I am getting that itchy feeling I get when I feel too unproductive, I have decided to grace the web with some more of my special brand of insight. Special, special, special. : )

I'm not sure what to write about though. I was thinking about telling about last weekend's snowshoeing adventure, or about how excited I am for my fast approaching midwest time, or, imagine this- being kinda tired (because I know that's pretty original and everyone's excited to read MORE about that...)

But instead I'm opting to share this little thing that keeps resurfacing in the shimmering and changing reflection pool wherein my consciousness resides and my little thoughts bubble up...

(Well. That was a rather sensational little analogy wasn't it? I rather liked it. )
But to the point, seriously now.

I'm really bothered by all these subtle ways in which I notice girls being persuaded to be less than they are. We have this almost subconscious habit of demanding that girls make a choice: well coiffed hair and lovely makeup and dresses and pretty things, and all the refinement and grace and poise that we associate with these, or brains and sports and thoughts and the strength and self-regard that go with these.

Thanks to a lot of hard work by those who recognized the injustice of women being denied opportunities as atheletes, entreprenuers and whatever else they dreamed of, I am part of a generation that has been enthusiastically encouraged to nurture our brains and bodies and to become strong women. I am, and always will be, infinitely grateful for that.

But I regret very much that, for a long time, it appeared to me that I was conceding something if I wanted to curl my hair and wear glittery barrettes. That it seemed that to admit that I was a girl, a girl who liked sweet sundresses and pretty pink lip gloss, and moreover, a girl with a real propensity for emotionality that I was convinced, perhaps even subconsciously, was one of the more despicable tendencies of a silly woman, would mean that I was not a strong, intelligent, self-respecting human being.

The truth is that I am a very "girly" girl in some ways. I am also very "ungirly" in some ways. To try to be one or the other would be ridiculous for me. And yet I realize that a self imposed battle between these two aspects of my personality defined much of my adolescence.

I remember adamantly resisting when my body outgrew the diminutive version of the Gap, Gap Kids, and it was time to move on to grown up clothes. You know why? Because I was a girl, damn it, and I liked butterflies and flowers and pink things on my clothes! I remember going through a phase where I was really, really into very romantic hairdos, pastel glittery bobbypins a staple in my repertoire. I remember wearing cute Steve Madden shoes to high school one time, and then feeling like all the rest of the girls I played sports with wore running shoes and that I looked weird, like I was trying to be one of the cheerleaders or something. (We were required to dress up on game days, but it was understood that this was a lot to ask, and that we didn't do it because we liked it...) I remember this girl on my basketball team who wore makeup to practice, and how we all ridiculed her, and accepted that she was not to be taken seriously as an athlete.

I, in fact, remember two days ago, when I was filling out "Interests" in a profile about myself, and I noted that I really liked to bake, that I sort of cringed, just a little bit. You see, baking was not on my subconscious list of activites that the ideal powerful, strong women with important things to contribute might count among her interests. Fortunately, though, thinking was and still is, and thinking allowed me to realize that I was being absurd and unfair, and further perpetuating the very sterotypes I so dislike.

In 1967, Katherine Switzer was the first woman to run The Boston Marathon wearing an official number. She was permitted to do so only through a series of misunderstanding, the result of which was that race officials didn't realize that the individual registered as "K. Switzer" was not a man. (However, it is worth noting that at that time, the very notion of a woman running a marathon was so foreign that there were no rules regarding such an event, nor any discussion of how it might be handled) One of my favorite parts of Katherine's story is that she started the race alongside her boyfriend with makeup fully applied, her favorite earrings and bright red lipstick. The boyfriend dropped out. Katherine, however, went on to finish, and later, to have an illustrious career as a runner and advocate for female runners, including organizing the first ever series of races for women, sponsored by the Avon company.

The following excerpt from Nancy Hamilton, female ultramarathon runner, is from the June 1992 issue of Suzi T's Trail 100's Newsletter:

Suzi called on Mother's Day and asked if I would write an article titles "Nail Care for Woman 100 Miler". I will admit, between giggles, that I started getting weekly manicures a few years ago. At first I was quiet about it because it seemed like such a "girl" thing to do, but after being reminded by my husband and children that I was a girl. I decided "what the hell"! Not being one to be shy, I decided to have fun and see if I could come up with my own nail care. During training runs, I stopped thinking depressing thoughts of world events, or uninteresting chores that needed to be done. Instead, I imagined nail designs and put them to paper as soon as I got home.

I learned quickly that if I was going to be an ultra-runner with fancy nails, I needed to learn how to fall. Living in the mountains, 99% of my training is on rocky trails which provide ample opportunity for practice falls. It has become a standard joke at my house, if I come home after a training run with a bloody knee or scraped elbow, no one will ask if I'm hurt, they will ask if I broke a nail!
I arrived in Tennessee for the Barkley Marathons with a glittery T-shirt and multi-color polka dot nails. My greatest feat to date is completing Barkley with all dots in tact! Being tough as nails on the inside, and glittery and feminine on the outside makes saying "I told you so", after finishing an ultra endurance race, extra satisfying.
The real ultra challenge would be for a guy to do a race with nail art intact.

Suffice it to say, lipstick and pretty nails did not in fact interfere with either of these womens' abilities to, put bluntly, kick ass as runners.

I like that.

I am a woman who loves dresses and pedicures and baking muffins. I am a sweet little girl who cries sometimes when she is overwhelmed. I am moody, and I adore cute baby clothes. Sometimes I like to be taken care of. I am a woman who is thoughtful, self-sufficient, athletic and strong. I run ultramarathons, and I love the feeling of finishing a pushups/situps to exhaustion workout. I enjoy managing my stock portfolio. I am smart and my opinions deserve consideration, but I am not so bull headed as to not respectfully and honestly consider the opinions of others, be they male or female. I like to play outside (when it's not too cold) and I like getting my hands dirty. I like to clean up and put on girly perfume and fun shoes.

I refuse to choose to be a part of myself at the expense of the rest of myself. And what is more important, I want other little girls to understand that they shouldn't either.

(Well. Then. I feel like the ending isn't as emphatic as I'd like...maybe I'll eventually change it, maybe not. Perhaps its because this is an issue without a clearly delineated peak and closure, one instead that I'm still grappling with...)

Comments welcome. : )

2007-12-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

tired tonight.

too tired for whole sentences.

pronouns, linking verbs- not necessary, don't think. see?

snowy-rainy outside.

feel simple.

wishin for company, the kind that's just here and that's it. don't want to do anything special.

sometimes even nothing is better when you share it.

(but sometimes i don't want to share anything...)

sometimes i think too much.

wear out my head.

and then i sleep for a little bit.

(until morning when im awake and rested enough to care that my family all thinks im crazy cuz im too tired to remember how to make sentences and stuff and i still feel strangely compelled to put these words out there. it's like self indulgent contemporary art, blah, bla, bl, b...enough.---> fading into bed...with lola the wonderkitty...nice dreams (love, radiohead) )

but if you think im a good writer, disregard this, and give me another chance later. : )

2007-11-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

on the melodrama of it all:

sometimes i get swept up in it, and that's kind of fun for a while.

but sometimes i am absoultely not swept up in it, and instead i watch it and that's not fun, per se, but it makes me smile, the real inside, eyes shining smile. NOW seems like a peculiar time to be watching it and moreover a peculiar time to be smiling, given current life events that it would seem to me should be more, say, affecting, but hey, I'll take it. (Forgive the ambiguity- sorry, but that's all you're gonna get. : ) )

the notion that just crossed my mind? its this, this strange part of me that can just step out and appreciate the lifeyness of it all as its unfolding that makes life- all of life- beautiful to me. even a good tragedy can be appreciated when you're looking outside in rather than inside out.

here's to life, and to seeing what makes it wonderful. : )

2007-11-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/weekinreview/18zernike.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=df5a2bb5d32eae0e&ex=1195707600

I love this. I don't have time to write about it now, but I love it so much, I have to put it up now. So that not one more second goes by without people I love having a chance to access it through me. Read it!!!!!

“There’s a difference between love as it is presented in movies and music as this jazzy sexy thing that involves bikini underwear and what love actually turns out to be,” said the psychologist Mary Pipher, whose book “Another Country” looked at the emotional life of the elderly. “The really interesting script isn’t that people like to have sex. The really interesting script is what people are willing to put up with.”

“Young love is about wanting to be happy,” she said. “Old love is about wanting someone else to be happy.”

2007-11-15T09:30:00.001-08:00

It is amazing- but then again, when I reflect on being human and being alive and the phenomenal propensity for adaptation that such a condition engenders, not so amazing- that I have started to find certain elements of this city, in a way, comforting. Not that I want to call it home for too much longer…but. But what?

I will explain, or at least make an effort to do so, but first I will digress. Because that is my way. : )

[Digression]: I think like a writer. I’m not sure if everyone does this or not, but a great deal of my day to day experience translates itself into neat- No, actually, not neat at all; massively disorganized, rather, adjectives and adverbs and other ways of making thoughts into black and white letters into words that might somehow make someone else understand whatever experience strikes me as worthy of translation. And in fact, making these words neat, or at least neat enough so as to be readable, to convey something entirely unique in terms universal, is the struggle, isn’t it? ([Digression within digression- on struggling]: Home Movie: Kelsey, 2 and a half years old. Christmas present- not opening easily. 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, four. Kelsey is still struggling. Sisters kindly try to help. Kelsey refuses; she is adamantly committed to a lesson apparently learned earlier that morning… “But…but Daddy says it’s good for me to struggle with the tape!” Note that I have no idea if I got the present open, or how long it took. I wonder….)

Okay. Enough digression. What a random one that (those?) was (were?); in fact, I might recommend rereading the first paragraph and then skipping directly to the one below. : )

Lately I’ve developed the habit of trying to categorize moments and experiences that seem particularly representative of New York into things I love and things I hate, largely as a result of a thought I had regarding the formatting of my thoughts into a little post/essay about living here. Obviously the neat little formatting deal I was going for- bulleted lists, short and sweet, straight forward- isn’t happening. Such is life.

Something funny kept happening as I tried to categorize. Most things, save just a couple, fit equally well in either category. I love hate the way Central Park is always perfectly beautiful, groomed and polished every single morning for maximal loveliness. Love that it is in fact lovely, hate that it is so groomed. I love hate the way that the unbelievable population density of this island means that a single individual is easily overlooked. If I wish to satisfy that universal human longing to be a fly on the wall, the invisible observer, no problem. I need only to sit quietly upon a bench and open my eyes. But if I have that other universal human longing, to be granted a real smile, to meet with my eyes another seeking pair, I am not so easily satiated. But the city's failure in this very regard spawns another thing to love- the way that, by simply acknowledging someone, by insistently meeting a stranger’s eyes and delivering a one second smile, I can fulfill a basic human need far too long unmet. I love hate the way that my neighbor guys say I’m like Jennifer Aniston, because I’m it, the token blonde haired, blue eyed girl of my block. I love hate the subway on rainy days- hate it because, frankly, it sucks, but love it because of the way it equalizes all the passengers by redefining our previsouly disparate commutes as the same battle with nature from which we’re determined to emerge triumphant. Not to mention that I have rain boots that are bright blue with sunflowers, and life simply CANNOT be taken too seriously while you’re wearing bright blue sunflower covered boots. Sometimes I think I should wear them even when it’s not raining. I love hate that sometimes I do, because no one ever seems to know what the weather is going to be like in New York. And I love hate the way this city makes you love hate it. How frustrating, how wonderful that everything just is and it’s up to you to twist it upside down and inside out and all around and turn it into something deserved of your intense love hatred.

That said, without further ado, the two things I could come up with that fit without question into the I hate category:

Penn Station at Rush Hour; AKA Frogger in real life. I take a deep breath and go for it, a straight shot from the subway turnstile to my train platform, but always, always, always, I am foiled by an inevitable smash into an overweight, tired out, unfriendly businessman. Game over!

Too far from my family and where I came from. (But don’t take it personally Manhattan.)

That is all.

But think more about love hate. Isn't it interesting that these words can be used interchangably so often, and that they depend only upon the subject of a sentence and not at all upon the object? And who knew that the rules of grammar could have so much to do with the rules of life?????????

: )

2007-11-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that great writing requires a level of candor I am not at all sure is conducive to great living, and therefore, I have made a decision to reclaim these unruly fingers of mine for a bit.

My apologies to you all, my legions of fans (great writing also requires some imagination), but in the interest of preventing bella calamitas, I'm done for a bit.

2007-11-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Ironic that I should compose and publish that first post this morning after having picked up Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses last night. As is of course my way, I had no idea, at least not consciously, what I was getting into when I got into it. I was at Penn Station, my train was delayed, and I decided I really had to have a book at that very moment, even though I hate to spend the money when I know I can order it for a tenth of what it will cost at the book store. But there is some value in immediate satisfaction, so I went to the shelves and picked out what I wanted and proceeded up to the register to buy it. The guy took my charge card and casually reminisced about when he used to have to keep Rushdie's book hidden under the counter...I didn't get it, he tried to tell me about it, I still didn't really get it, but I nodded so as to seem less ignorant. I told him I remembered now...in fact, I probably have heard all about it before and have just folded- or perhaps more accurately, crumpled- up that piece of knowledge and tucked it away in some semi-conscious crevice in the strange labyrinth that is my brain...

But I did a little reading about Mr. Rushdie today in order to inform a more conscious and usable portion of my brain...

Talk about writing and words and ideas and consequences...

I think I may have more to say about this someday soon, or maybe just someday...

2007-11-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Some people create trouble for themselves by speaking too freely. Words spill out of these peoples' mouths as though they have a will independent of the owner of the lingual equipment that forms them, and you cannot help but feel at least some sympathy for that bewildered owner as his face twists into an impressionist display of the helplessness resulting from the disconnect of his mind and his tongue...

I, fortunately, do not have this issue.

What is unfortunate is that I have this other disconnect, between my mind and my fingers, and they just start writing...and, oh god, what have i written, and why, oh why, is it so damn easy to put it out there..............?????? These letters just start making these words just start making these ideas, these sentences and then, "click!" And it's out there, and I'm out there, all of my carefully constructed personal boundaries betrayed by my fingers.

At least when people talk, they can count on the inadequacy of human memory to eventually forgive them. But writing...oh writing! It endures...

2007-10-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Le Grizz: October 13, 2007.

Alright. People have been asking for a race report; I keep telling myself I really ought to write one and the time when I’ll remember events semi-accurately without the superimposition of my own tall tales obscuring reality beyond recognition is fleeting. So let’s get ‘er done.

I’m not sure where the report starts. Last spring I got it in my head that I should try an ultramarathon. I am aware that this isn’t a thought that pops up randomly for most people, but I can’t for the life of me recall the train of thought that led me to it. It’s a mystery. But whatever it was that impelled me, I started reading a little. Somewhere some article made mention of Le Grizz as a good time. Looked up Le Grizz and it did indeed seem like a good time- right time of year, pretty place, right seeming atmosphere. So the idea was there. However, as a sensible and rational adult, I reminded myself that working full time and going to school full time really didn’t leave enough hours to train properly and that it would be a good goal to have an ultra done by the time I turned 30. But then I was me, and my head did this things it does where it wraps itself around these kind of ideas and just doesn’t let go…and I realized I was going to do it in October.

Training was good. More miles than I’d ever run. A couple really memorable runs, including my longest, a seven hour run through most of Manhattan and some of Brooklyn the morning after I flew in from Vietnam…jet lag + reflection on Vietnam + seven hours of running in Manhattan summer heat = surreal experience…everything so big and shiny and expensive…then lost in Chinatown… Running has this strange effect of intensely enhancing my sensory awareness and while that makes running outside in beautiful places really amazing, it also makes running in Manhattan…interesting.

Fast forward several months. Wednesday before the race: I am organized. Everything is checked and ready to go. I have all my favorite running clothes laid out, extra jackets and a rain poncho, hat, gloves, watch, blister care kit, tigerbalm patches, clif bars, coconut water, ginger candy, little containers of hemp protein…Montana, here I come. But my socks are all dirty. I have 10 pairs of Thorlo superlow socks with an ankle roll, and in six marathons (and now one 50!) I have never suffered a blister. I really like these socks. So, no problem, I’ll go to the laundromat Thursday night, pack the socks, good to go Friday morning. Thursday at 5:00, I leave work and enter a torrential rain storm. I am up to my calf in mucky water, my umbrella is blown inside out and broken…and more water is continuing to fall from the sky. I am NOT going back outside…but my socks are all dirty and I have to get on a plane the next morning, and for all of my blisterlessness, my feet have made it very clear to me with itchy disgustingness that socks need to be clean. So Thursday night I am handwashing socks in my bathroom sink. Surely if I wring them out and hang them up they’ll be dry by morning. My shower looks like the mantle of a home with many poor children at Christmastime. Poor because superlow socks are itty bitty, many because I like to be overprepared.

Friday morning comes, the socks are still there (empty!- the poor children…), and still wet. I stuff them all in a plastic bag in the front of my backpack and hope there will be a hairdryer at the hotel. At some point the night before I’d called my dad and he’d suggested maybe we could stop and buy some socks…but again, head wrapped around an idea…I needed my socks.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon. Landed in Billings, met my dad who flew in from Omaha to meet me. We’re on our way up to Hungry Horse by Glacier National Park. There is an airport in Montana just about a half hour from Glacier, but it cost upwards of $900 to fly there from New York. I have no idea why. But to fly into Billings costs $300. And how far of a drive can it be? I mean, they’re in the same state...hmm. Turns out Montana is a pretty big state. But a pretty pretty big state, and I’m hanging out with my Dad; I have carrots and an oatmeal raisin clif bar, we’re getting an awesome radio station…life is good. 7:30 or so, we’re within 50 miles of the hotel, averaging about 85 mph…and here comes Mr. State Trooper. He comes up, gets license and registration…I smile really big and tell him I’m on my way to my first ultramarathon with my dad and we’ve been driving all day, and it’s such a pretty state! We get a warning. My dad is impressed.

(I swear I did actually run a race. I’m getting there.)

At 9:00, we’ve checked into the hotel, which happens to have a dryer on the premises! Socks are in, quarters are in, we are on our way down the road for some dinner. There I meet Tim and Melissa and Mike. They’re finishing up their meal, getting ready to run the next day. It’s Mike’s first Le Grizz too, but Tim ran it last year, and I think it’s a good sign he’s back. Melissa had sprained her ankle so was relegated to cheering this year, but she seemed like a pretty put together girl- I expect her to take Montana by storm next year. : ) Good people. I have a sort of tricky stomach so I’m a little wary about what I eat the night before a race…but I see pasta with marinara on the kids menu. Sweet. Waitress comes, I order. They are out of noodles. Tim and Melissa got the last ones. Did I say they were good people?!?!?! I wanted noodles. But it turns out it’s good for me to have to adapt a little (imagine!) and since it looked like I was going to have my socks, I figured I’d be able to get to the starting line even if I had to have a baked potato instead of noodles.

As a semi-serious interlude: I include these little anecdotes because my knee jerk reaction to things not going my way entertains and interests me. I don’t know where I get this rigidity in thinking, but I know sometimes it’s just a bit too much. Sometimes it serves me very well- it’s probably why I was in Montana running 50 miles at all, but it’s also something I am both figuratively and literally, running away from. I can’t count how many times I’ve told someone I love running for its simplicity- got space? Got legs? Do they work? Go for a run. I recognize the value of discipline, but god it’s important to know the difference between rules and structure that support you and rules and structure that hold you back. Running is a good way to learn about this. (Okay, I think running is a good way to learn about a lot of things. Everybody should run more!)

Okay, though, race report.

So Saturday morning. At the race. I get my number, I think I should socialize a little, meet some fellow runners, but it’s cold. I decide I’ll have 50 miles to meet them, and sitting in the warm car wins out. My dad tells me to rest and close my eyes and visualize. He is sleeping. I am putting my thumbs up and taking pictures of myself in the passenger seat, because I think I’m cool. Also used this little porta potty at the start, met and talked to Kendra Borgmann while we were both waiting. Didn’t know that would be the last time I saw her for eight hours and twelve minutes. Fast girl, she is. : )

And then we started. Now from here I have to say I don’t know how people write race reports where they talk about mile by mile. I have no idea which mile was which. Except that I thought there was an unmanned water stop at mile 12, and I kept thinking we had to be getting close…so I asked Tony “the Tiger” Pickering how much further he thought it would be to mile 12 and he told me we were at 15. That was cool. Highlights, or at least notable, or at least memorable-to-me moments are as follows, in no particular order, because that’s sort of the way I ran. Mentions of mileage are approximate…give or take ten or so:

I drank coffee before the start. I was really glad I decided to put that little pack of Kleenex in the pocket of my fleece. I had to stop not once, but twice. The first time I was modest and tried to melt off the path a ways into the trees. By the second time I just wanted to get it done and move on- I made it about 3 centimeters off the road. I apologize if anyone saw more of me than they cared to. But I seriously can’t run with a full bladder.

I talked to Tony a lot in the first half. I noticed a lot of people were pretty quiet, in their zone, not wasting a lot of energy talking…sometimes I’m there too, but I didn’t really feel it that day. Other people and their stories kind of energize me. Eventually Tony paused at an aid station to change his shirt and I went on, but I kept telling him I’d be sure to find him at the end to tell him he was grrrrrrrrreat. It wasn’t really very funny, but he humored me. Thanks Tony.

Also talked to Jenny for a while. She was living in Alaska (cold!) and moved to Montana last year. Her husband was there with her baby Sammie and she told me that every time she saw them the baby would cry and want her to stop and it was really hard not to. A couple miles later I saw Sammie and it was true. She was pretty cute, and definitely had the potential to make someone want to stop and hang out. It looked like her daddy was doing a pretty good job, however, and I spent a mile or so thinking that I would like to have my babies come cheer me on at races someday. : )

My dad parked a few miles ahead and ran back to meet me for a couple of miles around 20 or so. I killed about a mile debating the relative merits of a chocolate mint versus a banana nut clif bar with him, or maybe that was in my head. The difference between what was in my head and what was coming out of my mouth was already blurring at this point. Anyway, I was carrying the chocolate mint one. I ate a bite, and then, probably just because we were getting close to where it was parked and I could, I decided to trade it in for the banana one I had left in the car. Mmmm, and that was a good decision.

As far as food goes, it always amazes me how good something can taste when you’ve run a long, long way. At mile 27ish there was an aid station with pretzels with chocolate coating. I would not normally eat these, as I’m sure the chocolate coating was full of weird processed things I don’t understand. But: I ate a couple of those and damn they were good. And because I just couldn’t shut up, I saw Mike and ran up to tell him just how good they were. He was excited for me. Actually he looked at me like I was sort of crazy, but I know that was just his way of saying how excited he was.

And the banana at mile 36…was what I imagine a fix must be like for a really serious crack addict.

My dad came and ran a few more miles with me around mile 28…still feeling pretty good. In fact this was the point at which I couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful everything was and how beautiful the world was and how important I thought it was for us to be thankful for it, and also that I remembered some book I had when I was really little that was about Buddhism and cats, and did he remember what that book was, and since he didn’t, could he promise to remind me to ask my mom later, promise, promise, promise…oh, and I was thanking him for the genes that gave me strong legs, because, I explained to him, I’m made for hills, and blah, blah, blah. I don’t even know what else I was talking about. But I remember that I felt really, really happy.

It was around this time that my dad mentioned that there weren’t very many women ahead of me. Like one. Not that it mattered. And I reassured him that it didn’t matter. But that, even though it didn’t matter, I just wanted to know how far ahead she was and what she was wearing. After reiterating that I ought not to think about it, he told me he thought she was wearing a baby bluish adidas top. This had the effect of causing hallucinations of a blue adidas clad woman up ahead in the distance for the rest of the race.

There were four or five or six miles in the late thirties/early forties that were unbelievable. I was absolutely drunk on my own endorphins. I had my Ipod on and sang. Loudly. Burning Down the House, the Talking Heads song, and, oh that other classic, Dignity, the Hilary Duff song. Again, I was feeling cool. Perhaps I should stop doing that. It is interesting to note that I don’t generally sing in front of people. It’s sort of a courtesy- if you heard me, you’d understand. Fortunately people were pretty spread out by this point, so I did attempt to maintain this standard, especially as I belted out Where’s your, where’s your, where’s your digniteeeeeeeeee?. Unfortunately, I failed not once, but twice. The first time I came around this bend and there was this woman patiently waiting outside her car to hand water or gels to somebody she hoped was approaching. Sweet woman though- I shut up really fast, and she smiled and told me to keep it up. And, despite my momentary sheepish feelings, as soon as I was past her, I did keep it up, right until I came up behind this guy. I actually feel badly about this part- I ran past him, then turned around and told him I was sorry for the singing, that I didn’t normally do it, but I felt good, blah, blah, blah. He looked like he wanted to punch me. I don’t blame him- sorry.

A few miles later, I understood that guy’s expression a lot better. This was the low point. My dad was there again for a little stretch, and I told him to stop talking. Sorry for that too. He took a picture- if you look at the album, there’s one where I’m looking up and kind of holding the water bottle up toward the camera. The expression manifested there captures those miles perfectly: “I’m still f**king running, endorphins are fading, and I don’t feel pretty and why the hell are you taking my picture????

But I’m glad I have that picture now.

And to be honest, that low point wasn’t so low. I don’t want to minimize the distance at all, but I have to say, it was a pretty fantastic experience the whole way through. I didn’t ever think I wouldn’t finish, and I didn’t for one moment regret having started. At various points throughout the whole endeavor, I reflected on the tone of my self-talk. It was interesting. When I was younger I pounded out a lot of anger and confusion and negativity in miles. And sometimes when I’m angry, I still run some pretty smoking fury fueled 5 or 10 Ks. But it’s nice that running no longer has much to do with those feelings. I was deeply and immensely grateful, alive, in love with the world for pretty much the duration of the experience in Montana. That’s cool, and I’m grateful now that I had the opportunity to be grateful then.

That said, and I hope I can explain this without sounding too masochistic, I had kind of been looking forward to some good mental battles with myself. Some people will get what I mean by this and some won’t, but I just felt ready to find some limits and challenge them, and it didn’t really happen.

HOWEVER: I can’t really justify complaining that the day was too perfect, or that it was too fun. I sometimes forget that while a meaningful time isn’t always a good time, a good time can most certainly be a meaningful one. It seems like a pretty silly thing to forget when I actually write it out that way, and I almost want to delete it, because it’s a little shameful to admit. But I won’t, because I think I should remember it.

Besides, I imagine life will afford me plentiful opportunity to battle self-imposed limitations in the future without my stalking them.

Anyway- back to the last few miles. Dad was there again to run up to the dam with me to Mile 47. I don’t remember that much except thinking how beautiful it was and him telling me I was like “a running machine.” That was a good thought to hold onto for those last few miles.

At mile 48 or so, Ben and Pete from Arizona came up behind me. I thought I was going to let them go, but Pete had this incredible black ponytail. It had to be the shiniest hair I’d ever seen, and I somehow talked myself into catching it. We ran together for a ways, and Ben said something about the top 15 of us getting Hungry Horse malt liquor...running turns me into a real lightweight and given that the thought of liquor at that moment was enough to start me humming Hilary Duff songs again, I kind of grimaced at the thought of what a shot might have had me doing…fortunately for us all, there was no such malt liquor at the finish line.

At mile 49, I couldn’t do the shuffle anymore. I ran. It felt good. Right before the end there was a little section of trail climbing, and I wish someone had been there to see my face while I charged (plodded? With a lot of heart?) up that little hill. I know I looked cool. : )

And then it was the end. Made it. Took a picture with Kendra- she was done a good hour and a half before me…I definitely never saw the baby blue. Ate some potatoes, got my neck and quads rubbed. Went home. Showered, nice. Put on pretty clothes, felt clean and satisfied. Awards Ceremony. Pizza with my dad, Tony, Michael and Tim.

It was at the pizza place that Michael mentioned Rocky Raccoon in February. 50 miles (or 100?) on a nice easy trail in Texas. I explained to him that I didn’t really have the time, that it was going to be too cold to train in Manhattan pretty soon, etc., etc. Then I came home and wrote long run dates for the next three months in my calendar and checked out airfares to Texas.

[Pictures: kellebelleruns.shutterfly.com]

2007-09-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Life is funny.

haha.

It makes me think of the mechanical bull at Saddle Ranch in West Hollywood. Where you pay money to get up and sit on this big machine and it spins around and bucks and goes through all sorts of other mechanized motions designed purely for the purpose of shattering your dream of remaining in the saddle.

(gee that sounds melodramatic. really life is pretty good these days. : ) )

But really, we like to get up on there and take a chance. And then we hold on and stay still as best as we can and enjoy the ride. Sometimes we fall, but on the good days we don't.

Today I am doing a good job. I am enjoying the ride. And I am still.

Peaceful, clear, still water.

2007-09-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Three words to describe me: "bottled fizzy water."

No, i did not come up with that entirely by myself out of nowhere, although I wouldn't put it past myself. (Can you do that? Put it past yourself?) It's the opening of a line from an Incubus song that is on my Ipod, but that I had never carefully listened to until a couple of days ago at the gym. I feel a little, I don't know, adolescent, getting excited about the applicability of song lyrics to my life, but I can't resist. Seriously, if there's one thing I feel like lately, that's it- bottled fizzy water.

I used to buy these one liter bottles of fruit infused carbonated water all the time, regardless of the fact that every single time, without fail, the damn things would explode when i tried to open them. Always, I'd think, "This time...this is going to be the time i don't end up with water all over...slowly, slowly..." and then, every time: "Whoooooooosh!!!!" and "Damn it..."

But that water was really good! And i kept buying it, because regular water is just so...great, but regular. And this water, even if it was volatile and sometimes frustrating, was worth it, just because I really liked it.

I'm thinking about it, and I wish I had one of those big bottles right now...

I think this time, I could get it...

[This is, in some way, a metaphor for bigger things...but I don't feel like getting into it now. Ponder it for a bit, and maybe later I'll come back to it. Maybe.]

Happy Friday and all my love. Exploding out like fizzy water.

2007-08-30T22:44:00.000-07:00

Last day in Vietnam.

And I am in an internet cafe, or not so much a cafe, but my little internet room place/front of somebody's house with many computers that we can use for a small fee. Seems an odd place to spend your final afternoon of a trip like this but I feel like I want to write some stuff down before it slips off into that void of subconsciousness and I can't remember how to put it into words.

So what follows is a sort of listing of some of the highlights. It's not very organized- I always got better grades in "voice" than in "organization" for my writing (hmmm, does that system apply to life in general as well?) and because I'm me, I feel it is necessary to put in this disclaimer so...I don't know why. But I have a lot of thoughts in my head I want to write quickly and not so much time or patience for the dumb sentences you put in to tie things together or make things flow or whatever. so if you're into that, sorry.

adaptation happens fast. its funny to me how quickly i have become relatively comfortable here. i say relatively, and this is true- i will certainly appreciate a run in central park with my ipod, followed by a banana smoothie in my clean air conditioned apartment on sunday...but whatever. showering by squatting under a cold faucet feels pretty damn refreshing too. and yeah, sleeping on the ground in a room shared with 19 other people is harder on my back than sleeping in my bed, but it works out. a couple days ago this girl had a pillow from vietnam air that she gave to me and it was awesome. i am excited to lay down at night now because i have that pillow. i don't even sleep with pillows at home. same with the strawberry tea. i started drinking this tea at the cafe across from the peace house and it is incredible. except its not really i guess...it's just something i've found to love. but what i really love is the way our minds start finding happiness in teeny tiny arbitrary things like free airline pillows and sweet tea.

speaking of the cafe, i feel that deserves comment as well, because it still makes me laugh. these cafes are all people's houses where they serve tea and some food out front, and the tables and chairs are those teeny plastic ones used for three or four year old children in the US. so at any time of day, there are these adult men hanging out, crowded around this little yellow plastic table crammed into these itty bitty chairs...its just comical. and i keep wondering if they know that this 'furniture' is made for toddlers or not. but returning to my theme- they adapt.

this is something really beautiful and really sad at the same time here. people are really strong and patient and they adapt amazingly well, but there is not really any concept of the power of individuals to enact change. as in, there is horrible horrible pollution and dust, so everyone has these little cotton masks- they're sold everywhere, and there are really cute ones with little butterflies or flowers on the corner, or plaid ones, or whatever style you want- but none of the people i've talked to at the house, who are all university students, have ever thought about writing letters to an environmental protection organization- i don't actually know if anything like this even exists, probably not- or trying to come up with regulations or a system that could make it better. i forget how fortunate i am to have been raised to understand that action is an option. i value this a great deal, but at the same time i have to appreciate the extent to which a lack of options cultivates strength and acceptance. there is that tricky balance between trying to change things and get what you need and just doing what needs to be done with what youve got. i will be thinking about this for a while.

so another funny story: this morning i was talking to this vietnamese girl who is graduating with a degree in business and foreign trade this year. i was asking her if she might look for jobs in the states and she told me she thought new york was too chaotic. mind you, we're having this conversation in a house about 400 meters down the road from a traffic circle where i'd seen only hours ago, a lexus SUV, a cart pulled by a gray pony, seven or eight bicycles and about thirty motorbikes zipping around with no apparent direction. the traffic is absolutely crazy, bikes, motorbikes, trucks, buses, carts, everything, everwhere, all the time trying to get somewhere fast via 'suggested' lanes. we also watched a traffic light tell us to walk at the same time as it turned to tell oncoming traffic to run us down. almost as if it's set up that way, and somebody's watching and laughing at us for trusting them...suckers! except it's not. it's just a crazy place that's gotten a bit ahead of itself and is going to take a while to catch up. however, apparently even here in hanoi, the thought of new york is just a little too much. i hear ya.

when im not nearly getting rundown in oncoming traffic or fearing for my life on a motorbike, ive been at the friendship village either gardening in the mornings, or playing with kids in the afternoon. the gardening is great. i find it really cathartic to be out in the sun, getting muddy and making things grow. a couple of nights ago i had a dream that i started an organic farm in iowa. it was really cool and i had a great time, except the dream was sort of realistic, like where i don't know anything about farming and neither does anyone in my family so we were sort of finding that to be a problem. but im sure after i woke up i got it all figured out and everybody in dreamland had a good time and ate some organic corn on the cob and apple pie to celebrate.

it's been hard with the kids in that no one has really told us what's going on with any of the kids; we just kind of get there and they're outside ready to hang out...but they're all different ages, about a quarter of them are really mentally disabled, about half are deaf, and about a quarter just have physical disabilities (i think), and none of them really speak english. but by now we kind of have figured out whos who and whats up, personalities and the like, and there are some really awesome kids. there is one little boy who i am totally in love with, he is soooooooooooo cute and teeny tiny with some messed up feet, but he manages to run around and jump around like crazy on them anyway. its really sort of amazing. anyway, hes very smart and very much likes to see what he can get away with, but he has a giant heart and happiness and all sorts of other good things practically pour out of him when he smiles. im going to be sad to say goodbye to him this afternoon.

so what else?

ive had some pretty good zen kinda moments out running. maybe a combination of heat, chemicals, tiredness, culture shock, endorphines? or maybe im just getting closer to total and complete enlightenment. : )

i also turned a corner running and saw a puppy get slaughtered. startling. also the cows just wander around by the side of the road here and i stop and pet them a lot and all the vietnamese people laugh at me. but my wishy washy vegetarianness is gone away, and ive lately felt really sure that i don't want to eat any more animals. i promise not to start working for peta or anything, and i promise i won't ever try to tell anybody else what to eat, but i am done with flesh for now.

last night we had an 'international night' where we all cooked for one another at the house, and wow it was good. prior to this, i was eating a lot of clif bars, and a lot of rice and vegetables, asian pears (so good) and natural peanut butter i brought from home...but last night, oh last night. we had korean kim chi, japanese curry, some other japanese pancake things that i dont know anything about except that they had no meat and were good, fajitas, a big romaine salad, and way too many japanese sweets for dessert. oh, and of course, smores. my friend jodie bought these sweet crackers and some chocolate and some tropical fruit flavored marshmallow like things...and we couldn't do a fire, so we roasted them over the gas stove on chopsticks...so it was not quite traditional, but they got the idea...

so. many, many experiences the past couple of weeks. sad it went so fast. i'm not going to lie- im excited for some of the things i have at home, but im not really ready to be done traveling. but maybe after 20 hours flying and an 11 hour layover in tokyo, ill be more ready.

and there's plenty of adventures waiting in new york. the good old chaos of new york... and im not ruling out organic farming in iowa some day, although ill have to find someone to take care of my crops when i need to run away somewhere for a couple of weeks...

let's call upon eleanor roosevelt for a closing here, even though i liked her way better before i read her autobiography...but she said some smart stuff, including the following:

"life has to be lived. that's all there is to it."

2007-08-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

So. Lately I've been a little, shall we say... ruffled?

But prior to this recent (and current) period of ruffledness, I had maintained a pretty long period of general contentedness. Really, the longest run of contentedness I think I've experienced in my adult (fine, semi-adult) life.

Anyway, now that run is over. I'm shifting and itching and shedding and growing and changing, new things are happening. Sometimes I get this way; I think it's because I'm alive.

Okay, though, so the point is, I'm okay with this restlessness- it's an important part of me.

But here's what's bothering me.

I wrote an email to one of dearest most wonderful friends the other day that did a rather excellent job of capturing and expressing my current itchiness.

Her response was sweet and lovely and honest and kind, but there was something in it that I can't stop thinking about.

She wrote back that she appreciated the email, etc., and then commented that my correspondence with her in the past year has been filled with "lots of flowery statements about how much you loved life and new york and all the rest of it- quite possibly true, but i dont really know anything about you and your life anymore."

I'm not sure exactly what emotion it is that this strikes in me- I think real emotions are often kind of a unique blend that defy our efforts to try to label them- but it has undertones of irritation but also amusement, definitely some confusion and frustration...

First of all, I might mention that I have NEVER said I loved New York. I am a very honest person, and I have maintained, since moving here, that although I do very much love parts of my life here, I would love to pick up those parts and transport them to another location, because I find the city itself to be very difficult.

But that's not the real point either. The point is that much of my life in the past year HAS been flowery and lovely. And it's not an accident that it was that way. I made decisions about what I wanted to do and I worked hard to set up a life that would enable me to do it; moreover, I have recognized that there is good and bad all around, and that I can make a choice to see and appreciate the good and do my best to further it in my own simple and smiling way.

This does not mean I have shut out the bad- on a personal level, I am far from my family and I spend more time indoors in an office than I would prefer to; on a local level, there is poverty and worse, a lack of self respect, on display througout a lot of my neighborhood; on a national level, my country is being run by men I have massive disrespect for; on an international level, there is a hideous war where children and families are being blown to pieces every day- not to mention an endless other array of ugly things, but let's pick one for now- which brings me back to ugliness on a national level, where the country in which I reside is largely responsible for this bloody and disgusting chaos, and then to a personal level, where two of the most wonderful people I know are stuck in the middle of it...

I have not forgotten all that is not flowery, believe me. But I have made a choice to also see that which is, and to make a conscious effort to exude that in myself, because I believe that what I choose to exude has an impact on the rest of it. If I choose to see and focus upon that which is flowery in my life, I am capable of offering to my neighbor a genuine smile, and to the world, a genuine spirit. Sometimes there are things that upset us and there are times when we feel pain, and that's okay, and that's also life- but I think it's worth recognizing that the times when we can offer the most to the world are when we are at our best and most flowery. Think of the power a single, truly happy child has to evoke happiness in those around him. Is there not something about that state which we ought to strive for?

I could worry and I could cry and be angry and I could be cynical and I could let it all wear me down. I could try not to be so happy and bouncy so I wouldn't seem, you know, too perky. Or I can be "flowery," because I have a pretty damn good life.

A flowery life is less interesting, I know. As proof, just read the headlines- consider our appetite for all that is scandalous. We're gluttons for the unflowery. We want the dirt.

I think there's enough dirt without my tossing in any extra handfuls. I want to be the beautiful thing that stands out in the pile of dirt. And maybe the wind will blow, and some of my seeds will scatter and some more beautiful things will grow. And the dirt will always be there- hell, to take the analogy to its extreme, we need the dirt; it's the dirt from which we rise.

La, la, la. I know this is not exactly what my friend meant. I recognize that. But it's something to think about, and I've thought.

I'm restless right now, and not my prettiest and floweriest self. But I can't wait to get back to that pretty, simple center. And when I get there, I can guarantee I'll probably write some more boring, flowery emails about how much I love the life I've chosen to live.

There is a list I made while sitting up in a tree on my college campus one time. It is titled 'Things that Make Me Happy:' and it is a long list, filled with things like dancing barefoot around the house on sunday mornings, fresh brightly colored produce, acoustic guitars, children smiling, and of course, flowers. Interestingly, I was inspired to make this list the day after spending a particularly flowery morning with my friend, in which she talked me into getting into the ocean for the first time in years and then we had a wonderful and mindful and simple and beautiful lunch...

I love my friend, and I think that many times she herself is one of the more beautiful flowers out there.

But I want her to recognize that a simple little flowery life, although it may be different than what she would choose, is still a life.

2007-08-05T15:31:00.001-07:00

today i realized...i really love being human. and sharing that with other humans.

it is very hard for me to be around lots and lots of people who are closed off from one another. smile everybody! connect! open up! share yourself!

i got a fortune cookie the other day that said: "you stand in your own light. make it shine." i kind of want to hand that cookie to everybody. have a cookie! shine in your own light!

so umm...the funny thing is, as you may notice, i am in a really lovey, sundressy, flowery hippie kinda mood this afternoon- this is largely a result of a fantastic trip to the health nut natural grocery store this afternoon. sooooooooo many wonderful wholesome treats- hemp milk, peanut butter puffins, peach rice dream, organic bananas and carrots, natural honey milled soap!- and how it makes my day... i really never cease to be amazed at the ability of the natural grocery store to make me feel content. that's weird, huh? i think so too.

oh well! : )

2007-07-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

My dad was here over the weekend. We went up to Saratoga and saw the horses and relaxed and I loved it, and I suddenly realized something a bit scary to me. I am ready to move back to the midwest.

Now perhaps I am being too dramatic. It doesn't really have to be the midwest (sorry Mom and Dad), but I am so ready to move to a town where I can have a little garden, where I can ride my bike without risking my life and where saying there's "traffic" means there's some other cars on the road.

I don't even really appreciate the "culture" a large city has to offer any more. I have seen enough famous bands at large venues, enough Monets at beautiful museums and enough lectures at highly regarded institutions. I'm just tired. Give me a guy strumming a guitar at a coffee shop, who doesn't have to try to look "small-town" because he actually is, who's "indie" but hasn't ever thought of affixing said label to himself as proof of his hip vibe. Give me some paint and a front yard and a sunny afternoon to create my own masterpiece, and give me a place where the noise stops long enough that I can hear the insights of a good friend.

For these are the things, the little things, that make my heart feel big.

2007-06-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

Work is profoundly boring.

I am not so good at being bored. In fact, I've realized, I'm terrible at it. I should correct that- actually, I apparently excel at feeling bored because the sensation of said sentiment exists almost constantly in my jumbly little brain. What I mean is, I do not enjoy the experience of boredom, and I am not good at accepting it.

This first dawned on me as I contemplated the sense of incompleteness I always have when I talk to someone I love on the telephone. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time, I find myself disappointed by my lack of exciting events to report. The last conversation I had where I felt I was sufficiently exciting was one in which I announced (a) that I had run 25 miles the previous day, (b) that I had bought plane tickets and planned a two-week trip to Vietnam and (c) that I had purchased a retooled retro bike, taken it out and nearly been hit by a car- I survived, but just barely! I dutifully made my announcements, and waited. For...? A big pat on the back, a "Wow, Kelsey, you are DOING THINGS! Good, good, good!"...I don't know, but it's sort of got me thinking about things. Most of the things I do, I do because I truly enjoy the experience of doing them (okay, save nearly being hit by a car while trying to ride a bicycle through Harlem), I think. But then there is this strange other desire, to DO things because I can, because I enjoy checking them off my list (literally...I have a peculiar habit of creating and maintaining multiple lists of the exciting things I should do.) Sometimes this is a good reason to do things. I fully believe we ought to do some things just because we can- it's a healthy reminder of who we are and the power we have to act and make things happen. But it is also important to remain the master of this insatiable desire for checking things off the list, and when it's an insatiable desire, it is, and you're no longer the master.

Something is lost when the greatest enjoyment comes from getting it done. I have never put a barefoot walk through summer-sun warmed grass on my to do list. Making ridiculous faces and finally getting the baby on the subway to laugh wasn't on the schedule, nor did dancing around my apartment with my cat while Kevin sang to us get penciled in. And yet, what would life be without these unplanned, unpursued, and by most standards, unexciting, moments of joy?

I remember being thrilled to hear someone use the adjective adventurous to describe me when I was a child, and now I wonder why I took it as such a high compliment. Somewhere very early on, I decided that this was the big idea, to fit in as many adventures as possible, to get out and find the wonders of the world, to defy expectations, to make the big things happen. And as I write this list, I must acknowledge that I still do think these are important things to do. There are times when life must be lived with these pursuits in mind. But, I am realizing now, there are times when it must not.

There are times when we must just sit back and see, stop chasing after everything and enjoy the wonder in what is already here. To senses that are really alive, this world will never be boring.

2007-06-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Oh wow do I feel like whining.

I keep thinking to myself that I ought to write about, I don't know, something other than angsty laments here, but...today is not the day. If anyone reads this, though, please believe me when I say that, sometimes, in real life, I am not complaining. This blog tends to bear the brunt of it.

But as a quick and happy interlude: I got a kitty-cat Wednesday! She is a rock star, Lola the WonderCat. (And here's the transition back to whiny complainingness...) I sooooooooo wish I was at home in comfortable clothes hanging out with her. Let's see if I can figure out how to attach her picture... yes, yes I can. Gee, I'm so technologically savvy.

Okay, now let's get down to the compaining.

My digestive system is a fricking mess lately. Really, and I know that people with a trusty stomach and set of intestines, and even those with less than stellar systems, get sick of my constant awareness of dairy products, oils, irritating additives and the like, but guess what? It's not really that fun for me either, but it's a hell of a lot better than sitting here with the inflamed and infuriated gut I have now. I've been drinking coffee lately, so that's probably partially to blame, but you know what? I like coffee! And I thought maybe I could be a normal American and indulge the habit with a cup in the morning (quarter full of unsweeted organic soymilk, of course), but apparently, this is not the case. But I know it now, and yet, I have continued, for nearly two weeks now, to send myself into irritable bowel hell. But...the coffee tastes good...OH MY GOD! COULD I GROW UP AND BE A LITTLE RESPONSIBLE FOR MYSELF?!?!?!

Which brings me to the next thing I am berating myself for: my overall bad state of mind of late, consisting of far too much alternation between whining and berating, occasionally interspersed with a teeny tiny optimistic thought.

Note how closely this follows the outline of this post. What a truly stream of consciousness blog this is- how special, a real peek inside the mind of the girl. (On a very peripheral level, of course.)

But so here's the deal. I realize the mind and the stomach and the general fatigue and poor sleep; these are all ingredients in this concoction that is my health, and right now they're pretty poor quality and they're all mixing up wrong and everything's out of whack, and ugh...all of it together...feeding off itself, and im overwhelmed and negative and stressed and tired and ick, ick, ick.

So. Glad I got that out there. And now I am moving forward, onward and upward.

I'm going to relax and hang out with my cat tonight, maybe an easy bike ride if I feel like it; otherwise, maybe read a little, have some tea. And then meeting he who makes me smile (usually) for dinner at 7:15, at the Aruyveda Cafe, for some serious rebalancing and wellness food. That I hear tastes pretty damn good. : )

And I am done drinking coffee. For real.

And I promise to stop mentally beating myself up about not getting 40 miles in this week. Also for real.

And I am sleeping 8 hours tonight. For real, I think. Pretty much for real, but I'm not quite as committed to this as the first two. But I still like the idea a lot. I think I'm pretty committed to it. But, well, like if I wake up tomorrow too early and it hasn't been eight hours I'm not staying in bed and squeezing my eyes shut. I think that's dumb. Okay, but no alarm. Goin for eight. Oh wait, and if I am serious about the no coffee deal, then...Okay, eight hours. As long as my body feels like it.

Damn I'm honest. So honest it's hard for me to even get words out sometimes, for fear that it won't be ABSOLUTELY what i mean. but this blog pretty much is.

23 minutes until I'm leaving here and heading home to play with my cat!

2007-05-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

I am lonely, and I wonder how this can be possible in a city like this. I have, in past journalistic musings, come to the conclusion that the feeling I call lonely has little to do with the accessibility of companions. But I'm just not sure what it really is. Kind of...an inability to place myself. I know who I am, and I'm very comfortable with me, but sometimes I am really bothered by this unsettled sense that this me is different from the person others see.

Wow, I read my own words and I have to laugh a little bit. These are all issues that come up time and time again for me, and I always think I've resolved them...they seem childish to me, reminiscent of adolescent identity crises...I do not want to allow myself to feel these feelings or think these thoughts.

I guess it's just that I am still sometimes upset by the reality of what people can and can not know about one another. I don't know why it is so difficult for me. In some ways, I respect and love the me-ness I have that is mine alone, but sometimes, it's just too much. I just want to take a little bit of myself and give it to someone who will see it, and get it, and love it, and put it away somewhere safe. But I just can't seem to get this done.

Funny afterthought: I have almost ruined my little rambling musing space because I told somebody about it, and suddenly what I have to say isn't as okay with me. I generally think I'm a more honest person than just about anyone, but then how is it that I don't feel okay about this person reading these thoughts of mine? Sometimes, as brave and beyond caring about how others might perceive me I think I am, I am wrong.

Correction: No, I am not entirely wrong. Turns out I do care, but I am in fact, brave. Because I said what I wanted to anyway. : )

2007-05-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

oh wait a couple more.

need to stop drinking coffee.
need to be a better and more loving girlfriend.
need to figure out why it's not easier for me/ what's wrong with me.
need to fix it when i figure it out.
need to write better blog posts, organize my thoughts and stuff.

2007-05-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

man. head of mine, shut the fuck up, seriously.

i.....
have tired looking eyes.
have imperfect abs.
need to stop being shallow and vain.
need to read the news.
need to stop always citing facts, people will think I'm an irritating know-it-all.
need to stop compulsively hording facts in my brain.
need to find out more!
need to stop blogging at work.
need to be more productive!
need to learn how to chill out better.
need to get some nicer shoes for work and baskets to cure the organizational impariments of my living room
need to save my money.
need to make more money.
need to stop worrying about money.
need to stop needing things from myself, stop making myself guilty.
need to stop obsessing about what i eat.
need to 'fuel' myself properly, to be a better athelete, fitter, healthier.
need to stop biting my nails!!!!!!!!!!!
need to eat smaller portions.
need to stop obsessing about what i eat...really.
need to be more positive.
need to be more social.
need to get more rest.
need to study more.
need to stop being impatient.
now.
i need to start writing more.
need to write more cards to the people i care about.
need to wash my hair.
need to ride my bike.
need to order some more protein powder.
need to read more about shiatsu.
need to read more about herbs.
need to plan a vacation.
need to make a deposit in my IRA.
need to get the pearl earrings my friend wants all the bridesmaid in her wedding next weekend to wear.
need to finish making her wedding present.
need to figure out what the hell scares me about marriage so much.
need to talk candidly with my parents about their marriage.
need to let go of things which ought not really to concern me.
need to stop thinking about me so much.
need to write a letter to my friend in iraq.
need to find something wonderful to send to him.
need to write a letter to my other friend in iraq.
need to find something special for her.
need to tell kevin's sister thank-you for the hanging rack, maybe i should take a picture of it.
need to take a picture of my coat because my mom wanted to see it.
need to learn about container gardening.
need to find a farmer's market i like in the city.
need to find time to go to a farmer's market.
need to have more days in the week.
need to appreciate the days i do have better.
need to give up complaining.
need to be more loving.
need to see more beauty.
need to stop expecting so much.
need to do some more situps.
need to get the chip in my front tooth fixed.
need to research the 2008 presidential candidates.
need to call my sister.
need to get the heels of my boots fixed.
need to meopgjweoprgjeoigjmeorvjmearoiuhjgbugbh[fnpowiealwkjv';bjks'lgmkw;4eljkasreg/.

FALSE.

i need to breathe air. that is all for now.

TRUE.

2007-05-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

i need to write. there are so many confusing thoughts and feelings swirling around and writing is the only thing that can slow them down, make them into something sensical. they are wild and whimsical and michevious and beautiful and devious and dancing everywhere but it is ony in the process of putting them into words and sentences that i can tether them enough to really get a look.

the strangest thing is though, im not sure if i really want to get a very good look right now. its a whole scary sequence of realizations, if-this-means-this, then that-means-that, than-this, than-that but then what about that. yes, that is what this is. : )

so could i just stop for a second...because really, im kind of making myself crazy. im trying to think of an analogy to explain myself, and all i can get is this image of that game where a picture really gradually comes into focus and everyone is supposed to guess what it is. and at the beginning, nobody really has any idea, but they just keep idiocally blurting things out, and then there's that moment where it's clear...tree! toothbrush! giraffe! oh, oh, oh, oooooooooooohhh, it's the eiffel tower...or whatever (where did i come up with that example?!?!? but you get the idea, don't you? yes, i do, self, since i am the only one who reads my/your blog. analogies are so perfect when you explain them to yourself!) so the point is, you eventually see whatever is really there, and the only way to do it is by letting it come to you a little bit, and then you have to laugh at the ridiculous images you'd connived moments ago...

so maybe i can't help myself, and my poor little id will continue to be irritated by the wildly inaccurate predictions of my ego (is that backward? i hate freud.) but at least i can remember that the greatest value of all these shots in the darks is entertainment. because life is crazy and it happens and we live it and we love it as best as we can.

and we do the hokey pokey and we turn ourselves about, and that's what it's all about. (are those seriously the words? that is what i remember, but how could i never have been bothered that 'about' has to rhyme with 'about.' how cheap. i feel cheated after all these years...)

and on another side note, just to add to the coherence, intellectual depth, interest, and so on of this delightful musing of mine: i just ate MORE pumpkin. i realize some people consume too much junk food or too much alcohol or any number of other things that are detrimental to their health...and it's great that pumpkin is not one of these items...but- did you know this? probably not, unless you are a pumpkin craving fiend like me or have had the pleasure of being close to one of us- over consumption of pumpkin has the unfortunate side effect of turning your palms and soles of feet orange. so now, great, not only is my head full of far fetched ego conjectures about the future, but i am glowing with beta carotene. sometimes i don't even know what to do with myself. but i find solace in the fact that i need not take little ego seriously. and in the fact that the pumpkin is gone. i finished it tonight.

you know what else i finished tonight? you'll be thankful....this. this rambling, babbling, ramblyness. finished.

end.

2007-01-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

it is 'the thing about these words IS...' (not are.)

and in case you were wondering, i also know how to spell 'schizophrenic.' (see post 2)

ahhhhhh. compulsive much am i?

2007-01-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

so, so, so, so exhausted. you know how sometimes there is a word that you know, and you could pretty much rattle off the definiton and cite synonyms, but you haven't actually experienced it...like, um...well, i don't know, because the thing about these words are that you don't realize you don't understand them until you do. for me, exhaustion was one of these words a few weeks ago. and now it is no longer. i feel like i know it inside and out, i have experienced it to the very depth of my being...this is exhaustion.

i wish it would go away. it's like i just got hit by a train (something else i've never experienced) and there are still all these things to do that pretty much just have to get done. and its overwhelming, all of it. last night i was riding home on the subway after class (after work). i would have been relieved to be headed home if i could have mustered the energy to feel a feeling. but instead it occured to me that i was going to have to walk the six or so blocks home once i got off the subway, and i just wanted to cry.

over walking six blocks! i am a five time marathon runner who just pledged to herself to do a 50 mile race in the next five years.

something is wrong.

2006-12-30T21:57:00.000-08:00

it's been a while.

it's late and i should go to bed.

but i wish i could figure out how to put into words the way i feel about myself and my relationships to the people around me right now. i feel so separate, solitary and strong as an individual, but not in the eerie way i used to. i used to fight this separateness so hard. i thought it was the obstacle barring me from the perfect connections i would otherwise have...

im too tired to fully describe it. but the point is, the separateness no longer looms as a chasm between me and my soulmate of the day. the way i once saw it seems so laughable to me now.

i am me and nobody else, and everybody else is somebody else and not me. and i think its wonderful. i know some really incredible elses and i really love some of them. and somehow it is the separateness that makes me able to do this. i feel more solitary and independent than ever before and more fully aware of and in love with people around me than ever before.

it seems so natural.

2006-05-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

last night i finished my REAL journal. (ha. yes this is only the fake, pseudo journal. the tip of the iceberg.)

there are pages left in it. but it's done. the first page in it was written on august 3, 2002. and the last page was written last night may 9, 2006. the story it tells is over. while i wrote it, i didn't necessarily even know what it was about. and now that it's complete, it all makes perfect sense. i hope that that is the way life ends up when i am old and gray. ; )

2006-04-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

im trying to write a better post than this but i can't. i keep typing. deleting. thinking. biting my nails. type. delete. and its not that surprising. its one of these days where im not really quite sure about: what im not sure about. problematic, eh.

i think its weird how far apart from one another distance and proximity are in determining how close two people get to be. this seems contrary to sense. and what is it even that is close? when i stop and i really feel all of the connections between us i am sure that they are real and i am sure that there is something strong holding us all together and i wonder what it is.

2006-04-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

i am sad again. ache, hurt, twisted all over, not about anything really, just because. when i look at people, i can not focus on them in the here and now. my perceptions are displaced in time and everyone, everywhere is just a slice of something so much deeper and more. i can not just see the person anymore, i am distracted by the shadows of who he has been and my visions of what he might become.

i don't understand where the pain comes from. it often occurs to me how burdensome it is to remember everything, how i wish i could just be here and let go of all the years past. they were not, however, bad years. most of the memories are of moments that were pleasant when they occured; in fact, they are pleasant when recounted aloud even now. but when im thinking and thinking and thinking of them, suddenly they ache and they are tears coming out of my eyes. how come?

[what have i become? my sweetest friend...everyone i know goes away in the end.
if i could start again. a million miles from here. i would keep myself

away.]

it just hurts today, and i cant expain it and i just have to feel it and then it passes and im better. it can't rain all the time. : )

2006-02-27T22:59:00.000-08:00

when i was little, i remember we had this office chair. one of those really great spinning ones. except it wasn't great. i remember that i always wanted to spin around and around in it, and everytime i did it, id end up nauseated. but it always still seemed like a good idea to me to start spinning, and i could never quite resist the temptation.

sometimes i think id still sit down for a spin if i had a chair like that.

i hate this part of myself. for gods sake STOP SPINNING.

i would like to be a person who sits quietly in an easy chair instead.

sometimes i am that kind of person for a while.

but now i am not; now i am spinning and its getting to be dizzying and i am trying to grab onto things to make it slow down.

2006-02-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

the world is so funny. it is full of little unpredictable events that make me fall in love with it over and over again.

last night on my way home from my martial arts class i stopped at the gas station. i went inside, bought some water (the lemon flavored kind is worth paying money for!...sort of...ok, not.) and paid for some gas, then came back outside to fill up. and there's this older black guy standing in the middle of the lot drinking a beer and bellowing jazz tunes. he doesn't appear to be homeless, except for the fact that he's trapesing around a gas station parking lot. what i mean to say is, he is wearing a clean collared shirt, tucked into a clean pair of slacks, he seems well groomed, except for a few missing teeth... the typical dissheveledness of homelessness is absent. but maybe he is shizophrenic, maybe drunk, maybe just feeling good, maybe a little of each. so he is singing his heart out, and one other guy pumping gas dances a little and everyone else makes a consorted effort to ignore him, as if to acknowledge him would cause some sort of irreversible damage to (drumroll...da, da, da, duhhhhhhh....): THE WAY THINGS ARE and THE WAY PEOPLE OUGHT TO BEHAVE. anyway, i was in a good, sort of transcendent mood so i finished pumping my gas and watched him for a second and smiled a bit and he walks over and asks how i am. i tell him im okay, then correct myself and tell him im actually pretty good, and he laughs and says he loves me. says he doesn't have to like me, no, no, he's got to looooooove me. ok, crazy gas station man. i laugh and tell him good night, then get in my car and he walks up next to the door. now im not going to lie: i know the WAY THINGS ARE and THE WAY PEOPLE OUGHT TO BEHAVE and i worry a bit when he approaches the car and im sitting in it. he tells me its a nice car (it's not that nice) and i thank him... he's still standing there, im a bit nervous now, my guard is up, but i still smile as though i'm not and it's not, because what else is there to do? and crazy gas station jazz singing man looks at me and he goes, in a sort of melodious way that's half song, half prophecy, "yeah. that's how you're gonna make it in the world. by bein' real..." and then he winks and walks back to center stage where he resumes his song. i buckle up, drive away, and i smile a real smile.

i am in love with the idiosyncracies of this world.

2006-01-29T22:44:00.000-08:00

there are a million little things i remember about everything. all coming together to make this one crazy perception i have of the universe and how it and all that composes it works. and it's so funny how all of what has happened and what is collides and determines what i believe might happen and what role i play in what really does happen.

someone once described life to me as one big play, where there is all this unknown plot and unknown everything and we are but characters in it. but always, no matter what goes on in all of the unknown parts, we have the ability to play our role in whatever way we please. i love this. i return to it now and then and i think it is good to remember to check in with ourselves and our character, just to make sure we're making the most out of script as its unveiled to us.

i feel really, really good about all of this now. i look forward to what i still do not know; i relish the opportunity to further develop my role.

2006-01-27T23:35:00.000-08:00

i am awake. why am i awake? i am sick. i have an upper respiratory infection, or so they told me today. a bad cough that won't go away and overall not feeling good-ness. which is rather unsurprising, considering that i am sleeping about 5 hours a night...

i get so perturbed with the world when i am tired. its ridiculous. i can be entirely rational about it and attribute the bad energies i feel to my lack of sleep and it doesn't help at all. or does it? i guess it helps in that i know, or can at least retain the hope, that this will subside after i get some rest. i also hope the fire in my throat subsides.

im tired and a bit lonely. housemates are off skiing and he who keeps me company is at his house across town. damn it, i wish he were here and damn it, i wish i didn't wish it so much. i hate how im always wishing he were here.

well. now in trying to figure out what it is i hate about it so much, i've exhausted myself and i can finally, finally, finally go to sleep. i hope, i mean, really, really hope i have peaceful dreams. im worn out, and i really just want some nice dreams. nice dreams is a radiohead song. great band. good night.

2006-01-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

sometimes i think it is a relief when people just give the whole damn understanding thing a rest.

...i used to have this little card that said 'if knowing were all it took to understand, then knowing that you did not understand would seem to be an understanding.' i really like that. ...

the times when i feel closest to someone are usually not when i am understood, but rather when i am not understood and it's still okay. it's easy to love someone when you can make sense out of it all. it is harder when you can not. if someone will hold my hand even when they can't figure out why i need it held, it's important.

i am tired, and full of a mango bran muffin. damn it, i shouldn't have eaten that. great. now breakfast is going to be off. because, you know, when you eat breakfast foods before bed, it messes up the balance. what balance, you ask? THE balance. THE BALANCE. need more be said?

2006-01-22T21:56:00.000-08:00

there are so many stories in all of us. i think sometimes we are afraid to tell them for fear of sounding trite, for the fear that when someone else fails to take out of a story what we put into it it is somehow invalidated. or maybe that's just me, i don't really know.

it's really difficult to know the difference between what is 'just me' and what is not, because i am me, and no matter how much i try to contain it, this 'meishness' is a constant and pervasive influence in everything i think, produce, am. so i find my best recourse is just to acknowledge it, remind myself always that much of what i think to be clear and obvious is shaded by an intense me-ness that happens to be invisible to me, just because i am me.

hm, glad that's established.

so, back to stories... im getting too tired to tell any great ones tonight, but before it's gone, i should note this interesting little tangent that has been going on somewhere in the back of my brain while i'm trying to write. understanding. we all want to be 'understood' so badly, and i'm not sure i get it. it's such a pivotal moment when you believe someone understands you, and such a blow when it first dawns on you that they don't. i have some other thoughts on people understanding one another, like that it's impossible, but that's for another night. for now, just wonder why we're all seeking, or at least think we're seeking, to be understood. and what is that really, i mean, where does the word come from... is it really from under and stand, and then is it supposed to be some kind of support? that validation?