Word

Every word you say
I think I should write down
Don't want to forget come daylight
- Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk

So today I did yoga and I will say it was a struggle. I ran two miles first and my muscles were probably still weak from yesterday. This song came on near the end and I was reminded of a boyfriend from a few years ago and how crazy I was about him. Looking back I can see that it wasn't a mature sort of love, but it was the first time I realized I could love again after my divorce. So it was a bittersweet time. I wonder the same now, if I even have the capacity for healthy love. Who knows. I always hoped to find someone before J was grown, but that ship has sailed. I so wanted him to have a strong male figure in his life. I hope I will look back on this time and be grateful I had this time to raise him on my own (for the most part anyway). The meditation today was on changing negative patterns, and I focused on doing so gracefully. I feel like I'm a very strong person but I struggle to act with grace sometimes. But I digress. Now I sit, body aching, watching the national championship. What an awesome game! I will most likely take tomorrow off to recover and I'm glad I've already got 7 miles this week!

I really can't stay

But baby it's cold outside
I have to go away
But baby it's cold outside
This evening has been so nice and warm
Look out that window at that storm!
- Cold Outside as sung by Zachary Braff and Donald Faison

Yes this version is on my iPhone and it just cracks me up. It was also my dialogue with myself last Thursday as I tried to force myself to go run. Needless to say I did not succeed. I went to a wrestling tournament in Apache Junction on Saturday dressed for a trail run in the superstitions thinking I'd be done by noon, but J did better than expected so we weren't done until 430. So I only got four miles last week! That motivated me to add an extra half mile into my trail run today by running the parking lot. So I got 5 today, a good start to the week. Now for the golden globes woot!!!

I may be mad, I may be blind, I may be viciously unkind

This is the book I never read

These are the words I never said

This is the path I'll never tread

These are the dreams I'll dream instead

This is the joy that's seldom spread

These are the tears...

The tears we shed

This is the fear

This is the dread

These are the contents of my head

                -Annie Lennox

In honor of my upcoming birthday, I give you this most depressing and depressingly relatable song.

I'll get my twelve miles in this week but barely, due to neck issues and plans getting cancelled Friday night, but I hadn't brought my gym bag to work with me, because I expected to be going out! Stupid weather. Anyway, so I only made it three times this week. 

Today at the gym there was a guy running on the treadmill with a backpack. And at least two men running with big hoodies on with the hoods up. They're going to sweat off the weight, see. 

I got a selfie stick for Christmas, so you can look forward to more of this sort of brilliance. 

This is all I ever was

And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
- Mumford and Sons, Ditmas

I absolutely love this song. It's sort of a reality check when I'm feeling down on myself. Myself shouts back at me - hey! This is all I ever was! I went to the gym again last night and my girl tagged along with me. We ran two miles and then did yoga. It's such an awesome workout. I generally feel like I shouldn't do it more than once or twice a week but I'm feeling really strong today! The issue is that's only 4 miles this week and I need to get 12. So we shall see how this goes. And it is so nice having this fun relationship with my sweet girl as she gets older. And the clouds were beautiful yesterday. I wished I were among them in the mountains.

Maybe She's Just Looking For Someone To Dance With

See, it was just too soon to tell

And looking for some parallel

Can be an endless game 

            -Michael Penn

I just downloaded this album, and I tell you, there are very few albums that make me feel more 16 years old than that one. Because I was cool like that in high school. 

I haven't done any running or much else this week since I aggravated my chronic neck injury by reading all weekend on the couch with my neck in a bad position, which I knew and did it anyway. (I'm reading the Game of Thrones books, I haven't gotten to Virginia Woolf yet, I have all year). 

However!!! We did our first dance class where we learned the Foxtrot, which is a very boring dance, as far as I can tell. I can also say unequivocally that we are terrible at this. But we will go back again, we had fun, even if we were terrible. 

3 things I learned for sure

In yoga class today. 1. My body never wants extra push-ups. 2. I'm never on autopilot during yoga- I'm always struggling to figure out what the hell my body is supposed to be doing or collapsing under the strain of it. 3. There is a hole in this particular pair of yoga pants. Right in the cheek. So.

The challenge to this whole 1000k goal this year is that I can't just run for my exercise. I did 600 miles in 2014 and my hips were a mess at the end because I was born without ass muscles. So I have to definitely keep up yoga. Which will be a challenge. Tonight I ran two miles before yoga which seems like the perfect workout to me. But it's a good 2 hour time suck so difficult to do more than once or twice a week. And yes, the writing about it does keep me motivated because of the accountability factor. So bring it 2016!!! I'm down.

Well It's A Donkey At Any Rate

These are my 2016 things. I don't call them resolutions, resolutions are for schmucks. I agreed to start in with this cursed and boring blog again because it apparently motivates my sister, horrified my father and it sometimes amuses me. So. 

I do reserve the right to talk about all this shit, not just the boring running. Not that it's all not boring as hell, I'm just saying you might also get adventures in bread making and my deep and highly intellectual thoughts on Virginia Woolf.  Our first dance class is on Monday, we are doing the "Ballroom Sampler", so there's that to look forward to as well. 

I did run today, a good four miles, but it is January 2nd, so I first had to fight in a cage match to get a treadmill TO WHIT, I bring you my "Tips for Gym Newbies" also known as "stop pissing me off and go away until next year you stupid motherfuckers". 

1. Wear deodorant, for the love of God. The gym is not a deodorant free zone (AND QUIT LIFTING YOUR ARM YOU MOTHERFUCKER ON THE TREADMILL TO MY LEFT). 

2. Shut up. And by shut up I mean, SHUT THE FUCK UP. I don't care about your buddy system theory that will maybe get both your sorry asses to the gym more often this year, you pony-tailed pieces of shit on the treadmills to my right. This is not the place for your goddamn quilting bee, or a discussion of your latest detox plan. You distract others who are doing more than walking on the goddamn treadmill, and if I can hear you over the blasting of my obscene music, then you are talking too loud. SHUT UP. 

3.  Don't ask me how to use the equipment. That is what all these staff people who work here are for, except when they are too busy signing up more people like you, who we all put up with until you go away in a few weeks, knowing, as we do, that you subsidize our cheap memberships the rest of the year. Don't expect me to be nice to you for it, though. 

4. You might hear some feel good stuff around this time of year about how the regulars really aren't paying attention to you, and you should just feel confident and get to the gym, and don't worry that the regulars are being annoyed by your lack of deodorant and basic gym etiquette. This isn't true, and you shouldn't believe it for one second. You annoy the fuck out of everyone. 

5.  That being said, if you keep at it, next year you can be the one who is annoyed, rather than the one doing the annoying. Good luck. 

MOTHERFUCKER

I'LL BE BACK FROM THE DEAD SOON
I'll be watching from the center of the hollow moon
Oh my god I think I might've made a mistake
Waiting patiently was waiting taking up space.
- AWOLNATION, Hollow Moon

That's right motherfuckers, we're back!!! 1000k challenge here in 2016 and it's gonna be a bad bitch. Ima make a deal with the bad wolf so the bad wolf don't bite no more. I'm gonna blow up 2016 indiscriminately. Waiting patiently just takes up space. Ima take this bull by the horns. Yesterday I kicked off this bad bitch with a 4.5 mile trail run/walk, mostly walk given the nasty chest cold that's been plaguing me. But it's on. Like donkey kong.

Secrets

"It's something like a shared secret, this love they have, as if nobody else was in on some breathtaking elaborate joke. Which is the best way I can describe true love. A secret joke two people share, a knowledge that somewhere in this very very hard world there can be true comfort, warmth, belonging, friendship — a gentle sharing of burdens, secrets and sweat — that no one else could imagine except the person under the covers with you listening to the stereo."

- Mikel Jollett, The Airborne Toxic Event

I read this quote last night and kept coming back to it during my run this morning (which was sweaty and slow and frequently interrupted by dog potty breaks). Beautiful and eloquent. I think this describes love as I've best experienced it.

Something you lost

You dare never say, the greatest secret you keep

Is that you might be alone, that you might have to run,

That the rest of your life will be a series of nights

That you spend in your mind

Staring backwards through time

At something you lost.

 - Airborne Toxic Event 

The good thing about running is that it prevents tears. Or at least stops them from flowing. Have you tried it?  It is impossible to cry and run. Like sneezing with your eyes open. I ran tonight for the first time in weeks. A slow plodding and even somewhat relaxing run if that's possible. Exhaling out the sad. Breathing in the freshness of possibility.