Yellaphant

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2012-01-11T05:34:00.000-05:00

I heard the church bells from afar,
But we found each other in the dark.
And when the smoke does finally pass
We will rise above all the ash.

Cause we're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
We're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
We're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
At last.

So bright, the flames burned in our hearts,
That we found each other in the dark.
Like beasts out in the wilderness
We are fighting to survive and convalesce.

But we're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
We're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
We're gonna live, we're gonna live, we're gonna live
Like the rest.

Through the black starless water,
And the cold lonely air.
On the rock restless seas,
The vessel in deep disrepair.
And I swore they started singing,
But then oh, rejoice!
I can still hear your voice.

Then I heard the church bells from afar
But we found each other in the dark

The only tickets we successfully get are speeding tickets ... sike I get out of those too

2012-01-10T07:57:00.003-05:00

I've never fooled myself into thinking that I'm yet an entirely functioning member of adult society. I send clean pants to the dry cleaner just so I don't have to iron them. I routinely set the oven on fire. I trash talk small children to make myself feel better. I occasionally wake up in the bathtub. I don't feel like I need to go on here.

I have a laundry list of flaws, but nearing the top of my Get Your Shit Together For Chrissake list is my absentmindedness. I misplace (every)thing(s). I lose iPhones. I screw up reservations. I forget birthdays. I just wish I could be thoughtful and considerate like all those other people in the world who are mature and productive and do things like write hand-written notes and send birthday cards on time and send birthday cards at all and remember your mom's name and that you don't eat pizza because the cheese makes you gassy.

But I do take comfort in knowing that there is one person who is significantly more absentminded than myself, and that is my husband. I mean wow. Sometimes even I'm amazed. Other times I'm downright horrified. What happens when you put two absentminded people in a house, add a whining dog, a few dozen bottles of alcohol, and stir? I'll tell you what. Actually, I don't know what, but it's certainly not world domination and it likely ends in flames and/or water damage.

Perhaps our absentmindedness has never been more clear as our history with tickets. Case in point: B once tried to buy us tickets to a Ray LaMontagne concert when we were living in Philly. He accidentally bought two tickets for a show on a Tuesday in Cincinnati. Cincinnati? When you accidentally purchase tickets for an incorrect city can you at least make it a city worth visiting? How about New York or DC, Charleston or Chicago? But Cincinnati? No offence, Cincy, but ew. I think it goes without saying that those non-refundable tickets went to waste.

"Wait, wait, how is that even possible?" my friend Lisa asked. "You have to go through like eight confirmation pages to buy concert tickets."

Yes, Lisa, you do. That's like eight opportunities to realize you're wrong before you hit purchase. But on we go!

Since then, I've largely been in charge of ticket purchases. Unless B is trying to surprise me, like he did recently with a pair of tickets to see La Cage Aux Folles. There's nothing that gets me going quite like a bunch of beautiful men in drag kicking their legs higher than your dad was for most of the 70s. But imagine our surprise when we got to the theater will-call office the night of the show to discover that the night of the show was actually the night before.

Lucky for us a woman -- who just happened to be entering the theater at the same time we were being regretfully informed by the staff that B had mixed up our dates -- paused just long enough to ask us if she heard correctly that we had tickets to the wrong date, and hand us two eighth row tickets as she shout Merry Christmas over the din of other theater-goers. Merry Christmas, indeed. And a happy drag queen!

Now normally, I will jump all over B for forgetting to pick up a gallon of milk and some dog food for the fifth day in a row or for stepping over the bag of garbage that I pulled out for him to take to the dump three days before he remembers to pick it up, but when it comes to tickets, I just don't have any ground to stand on.

That's because right before our La Cage incident, I booked B a plane ticket from Philadelphia to Boston for Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, that's correct. Philadelphia TO Boston, not Boston to Philadelphia. The argument could be made that there are probably like eight confirmation pages you need to get through before purchasing an airline ticket too. That's eight opportunities to realize you're an asshole. So B took a bus. And as B's luck would have it, the bus hit a little traffic and an extra three hours or so was tacked on so that trip that should have taken 45 minutes on a plane took nine hours on a bus. My bad, B.

Interestingly, that very same weekend I had also screwed up my own tickets for my trip home for the Philadelphia marathon. When I booked my trip this past summer, I chose the cheapest flight possible, which got me into Philly around 10 p.m. the Friday before the race. As race day got closer, I began to get nervous. Friday's an important nutrition day. I really ought to have a well-balanced dinner with lots of carbs. I need a good night's sleep. Ten o'clock is too late. TEN O'CLOCK IS TOO LATE. I WILL RUIN FOUR MONTHS OF TRAINING IN ONE DAY TEN O'CLOCK IS TOO LATE.

So I switched my ticket to an earlier time, paid the $40 for choosing a more expensive flight and let it rest. Until the week of my flight when I got a confirmation for my flight that landed in Philadelphia at 10 p.m. Turns out I had gone through every step of changing my ticket, got distracted on the last page (likely by something shiny), never hit purchase, and walked around for a month thinking I had changed my ticket like the jackass that I am. Naturally, by this time those flights the weekend before Thanksgiving weekend had tripled in cost. MOTHERFLIPPER.

So you can imagine how nervous I was when purchasing tickets this fall for a trip that B and I are taking next month to Guatemala. Oh, by the way, B AND I ARE GOING TO GUATEMALA! But buying these tickets, with all of our other ticket flubs in hovering around the back of my mind, was incredibly nerve-wracking. I put it off for weeks. I hemmed and hawed over every detail. It took me a solid two hours to hit purchase because I reviewed my dates and numbers and prices and times and airlines at least 68 times before I felt that I had in fact selected tickets to the correct country on the correct date during the correct year at the correct time and is this in the same time zone and do we have enough time during layovers and what about the time and is everything right and where are we going again?

I immediately started pacing around my living room while waiting for the confirmation email to hit my inbox. I was convinced that despite all of my quadruple times five bazillion checks, I had selected something incorrect. When I didn't receive a confirmation email after five minutes, I called the airline.

"Hi, I haven't received a confirmation email yet."

"Oh sure, I can help you. When is your flight?"

"February 16th."

"And where are you going?"

"Guatemala."

"And when did you book the tickets?"

"Like, five minutes ago."

"Just five minutes? It usually takes a few minutes to get through the system, you know..."

"Right but I haven't received my confirmation and nothing has been charged to my credit card yet and what if I hit purchase but they actually didn't purchase because I've done that before and can you just tell me if it went through because oh my god what if I thought it went through and then the week we're supposed to leave I realize it didn't go through or that I actually booked us tickets to somewhere like Guam when I meant to select Guatemala and I've been planning a trip like this for YEARS AND I WILL HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING."

"Ma'am?"

"Can you just check?"

"You're all set, ma'am. Enjoy your trip."

WE'RE GOING TO GUATEMALA, MOTHAFLIPPAS!

I love you, New York

2012-01-06T04:54:00.000-05:00

A long weekend in New York City with my best friends:

After a long weekend in New York City with my best friends:

The thing about public toilets ...

2012-01-05T14:43:00.006-05:00

Have you ever had something written in your head and while it's up there bouncing around it seems so great and shiny and maybe even funny? And then when you sit down to put it to paper you can't remember what ever made you think it was any good in the first place but maybe you're just having a day because you've been so sick the past couple of days that the thought alone of putting pants on has been entirely overwhelming? Yeah me too.

But anyway. When B and I were driving down to Philadelphia for Christmas I had the audacity to force B to stop at a public restroom not once but twice during the five and a half hour cruise south. And here's the thing about these rest stop toilets: they're easily the most welcome and revolting sites you've ever laid your eyes on. Welcome, because usually by the time I can convince my husband to pull into one I have to pee so badly the whites of my eyes have turned yellow.

And revolting, because well duh. They're public rest stops somewhere in the middle of god forsaken Connecticut and you're surrounded by other rude, road-weary, and disheveled looking travelers who probably have poop all over their hands and now they're touching everything that you need to touch and excuse me, ma'am, but are you really washing your hair in the sink that I would like to wash my hands in and oh the hand dryer doesn't work and there's no paper towels and is that pee I'm stepping in or is it just water and YOU KNOW WHAT NEVERMIND.

I'd like to point out that I'm not particularly squeamish when it comes to public toilets. I live my public restroom life by the mantra of get in, get out, and touch as little as possible in the least amount of time. But one thing I am is neat. What I do not understand is when someone leaves a toilet seat covered in pee for the next person to discover. Look, I get it, you're a squatter. I'm a squatter too. No one wants to put their butts on those toilet seats. And not just because my freshman year bio teacher told us we could get chlamydia from them. I'm older and wiser than that now. They're just icky.

When I was in high school I spent a good chunk of time doing service work in the Dominican Republic and we were taught to sanitize our showers and bathrooms by peeing on them. This is not something I will soon forget. I don't assume, however, that the women who go before me are politely sanitizing these seats for other travelers. I assume they just nasty.

I was contemplating all of this from a stall somewhere on the New Jersey turnpike a few days before Christmas. This particular public bathroom will also stand out in my memory. First, it had the type of toilet paper holders that are shaped in such a way that the ever-so-delicate toilet paper rips off in your hand every time the roll makes a single rotation, resulting in the user being forced to rip off the toilet paper square by square, frustratingly reaching your hand as far into the holder as you can force it to try to get your fingers around more paper. Who invents that shit? Like, aren't there supposed to be some type of quality prototype testing before you ship a product out to public restrooms across America? Aren't public restrooms supposed to be designed to get as many travelers in and out as quickly as possible? Who has the patience for that shit? Get in, get out, touch as little as possible in the least amount of time. It was killing my mojo.

But the real problem came with the flushing. This bathroom had automatic flushing toilets, and when I stood up fully to pull up my pants the toilet flushed itself with such violent force that a spray of urine-water splashed all over the back of my bare legs. I yelped and leaped forward to try to get out of spray range but there was so little space between the toilet and the stall door that I rammed my entire body, including my forehead, into the length of the door and if there's one thing I never touch in those bathrooms, it's the bathroom door because EW. Like seriously, EW. GET IN, GET OUT, TOUCH AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE IN THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME.

Now I'm ricocheting off the walls of this toilet stall while desperately trying to rip off as many toilet paper squares as possible as quickly as possible so I can wipe the back of my legs and WHY WON'T THIS TOILET PAPER JUST BE NORMAL AND ACT LIKE NORMAL TOILET PAPER WHEN YOU NEED IT TO AND WHO INVENTED THIS AND IS THE TOILET STILL FLUSHING OMG OMG OMG OMGOMGOMGOMG GET IN GET OUT GET IN GETOUTGETOUGETOUGETOUUUT GET OUT?!

I cleaned myself up and egh, blegh, meghed all the way back to the car while violently shaking my hands in front of myself. Then I decided since I would be driving the remaining three hours home, that I should probably grab a coffee which makes perfect sense because you know what runs through my system in a time significantly less than three hours? Coffee. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2012-01-04T10:44:00.004-05:00

Let me start by apologizing for my little holiday hiatus. You know how it is when you go home. Things get busy. And drunk. Then after Christmas in Philly I took a little trip to New York City to celebrate the New Year. And you know how it is when you go to New York City. Only in New York could you be jogging in Central Park one hour, enjoying a glass of red wine in a cafe the next hour hour, sucking down some amazing sushi the next, sipping PBR in the back of a comedy club the next, find yourself in the courtyard of a delicious Belgian Beer Garden the next, and round off the wee morning hours singing a somewhat tragic rendition of "Love is a Battlefield" in a karaoke booth somewhere in Koreatown. GOD I love that place.

So yeah. I've been bustling around the east coast. But now I'm back and in retaliation for completely obliterating myself with rich foods, hearty beers, and lawd have mercy the wine for a week and a half straight, my body has completely pooped out on me. Worth it.

Anyways, Song of the Week. Right. So while I was bopping around Philadelphia, I came across a band that had me completely shmitten by about 10 seconds in. I heard this song by Of Monsters and Men on my favorite independent radio station and immediately wanted more more more. Please to enjoy. And someone bring me some chicken noodle soup.

You'd still run

2011-12-27T17:26:00.000-05:00

Yup.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-12-22T07:52:00.000-05:00

I totally had this all queued up to be posted yesterday and then got so distracted by shiny things and eggs over easy and winter seasonal beers that I totally forgot to ever hit publish. So you get it today. Maybe if you're super lucky, you'll even get a real blog post out of me too. But I'm leaving for Philadelphia in 10 hours and I'm pretty excited about it so my attention span is even shorter than usual, which is to say somewhere between goldfish and a hamster.

One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, as performed by a band that is currently getting quite a bit of play time in my office cube. Goosebumps.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-12-13T21:59:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Mojo sent me the link to Paste Magazine's 50 Best Albums of 2011 and there went my entire Tuesday night! I was happy to see some of my favorite albums of there year nestled in there like candy canes on a Christmas tree but I also got to spend some time exploring a lot of bands that frankly, I'd never heard of. And there are some real gems! One of which is Seryn.

As Paste puts it: With mostly acoustic instruments—ukulele, banjo, accordion, violin, cello and trumpet—and soaring choruses, this Denton, Texas, quintet builds nearly every song into a joyful crescendo adding voices—and urgency—as it progresses. That’s never more apparent than on “We Will All Be Changed,” which gets exponentially better with every decibel you turn it up.

I like to listen to my music loud.

Clip 'o the Week

2011-12-13T14:30:00.003-05:00

Can't deny it. Can't stop laughing. You're all welcome.

via Shmitten Kitten.

Don't mean to be fresh ...

2011-12-13T07:24:00.003-05:00

I'm not breaking any exciting scientific news here when I say that dogs are rude. Everyone knows it. My dog is one of the cheekiest little assholes I've ever met. I love him to death, but damn he is cheeky. But its not like he's the only one. Dogs will roll in shit and then jump on your couch. Or they'll eat dead things and then throw it up on your carpet. And then they'll try to eat it again. And they won't even think twice about running into the neighbor's yard while you're in your sweatpants, slippers, and a long fur coat. Or, as I've most recently discovered, they'll shove their head in their crotch in public and absolutely no type of gentle coercion is gonna get them to move it. Rude.

First, I'll give you a recent example from my own dog. I say recent because we went through quite a long time of this dog acting like a complete and utter dickhead until we loved (and emotional dog therapy-ed) the dick out of him. For the most part. But way back when there was all that real rescue dog behavioral stuff we had to deal with, like humping and growling and biting and snapping and snapping at small children and humping small children and humping grandparents and crawling under things and not eating and temper tantrums and barking and attacking other puppies, and did I mention he bit the puppy kindergarten teacher on puppy kindergarten graduation night, and generally just being a dickhead.

But that was a long time ago. Now he's just cheeky. I've recently taken up trail running and on my shorter runs, I'll take Rooney. He's pretty good in the woods and usually keeps himself relatively close to me unless he's off on a scent. Even then, he almost always comes soon after I call. Recently, it's been really muddy in there though. I mean REALLY muddy. There are portions of the trails that are downright swamp and there's no real way to avoid them. Some of these puppies stretch on for 10, 15, 20 feet and take up the entire trail.

What I'll usually do is slow down and tip-toe my way around the inch- or two-wide edges where the mud and water is just a few inches deep, as opposed to the rest of the puddle that can be shin-high with muck. The kind that sucks your shoes in and makes explicit sounding sounds when you pull them out and dirty water a few inches even higher than that. So of course for those few seconds I always pretend I'm journeying through the Swamp of Sadness from the Neverending Story and I have to prevent myself and my trusty steed from being sucked in to our doom and did you know that I STILL can't watch this clip without crying? FIGHT AGAINST THE SADNESS, ARTEX!

The dog -- who is always a few paces in front or behind me -- always takes this exact moment to run up next to me and bump me into the center of the giant puddle. Because we're usually moving at a relatively good clip and I'm hopping on my toes, often from rock to rock, my balance can't really take a good jolt to the knees that he gives me and I inevitably end up in the middle of the swamp. Once safely on the other side, he turns around and wags his tail at me. Every. Single. Time. It doesn't matter if Rooney's 50 feet behind me and I think I'm safe; he'll come sprinting up next to me just in time to knock me in. It's like the dog takes great joy in watching me stumble into the filth. He does it on purpose. I can just feel it. Dick.

Anyway. I was taking a stroll through town with Rooney this past weekend when we came across an older man walking his golden retriever. The dog's name is Boo, which is ironic because this man is a bit of a neighborhood Boo Radley. He's an older guy and a little worse for the wear for it. He lives alone in an huge, old, somewhat decrepit house around the corner from us. He's very friendly, but he's clearly a little slow and I can see why he can come off as a little creepy to some people.

Whenever I see him walking, I usually stop and say hello and let him get some of the talking out that he seems to have been holding in all week. Every single time we stop to chat about the dogs, Boo shoves his head in my crotch and keeps it there. He doesn't move. It's like he's warming his nose in my lady parts. I'll try to deflect by petting his head with both hands and discreetly shoving him away or crossing my legs or turning my hips or putting Rooney in between my crotch and Boo. Look, Boo, a dog butt. Nothing works. The dog's and dog and he has a one track mind: My crotch.

And you can save all your jokes about my crotch smelling so good/bad/like dog food, Falko, or my choice of underwear/time of the month/showering habits because he's not even sniffing. He just forcefully shoves his nose in between my legs and stands there. Instead I invite you to make all the jokes you'd like about my chastity/lack there of/the dog's need to guard my virtue/lack there of.

The old man either doesn't notice or doesn't care and I can't figure out which. Every time I take a few steps back, Boo's owner takes a few steps forward so Boo doesn't pull on his leash. It's like an ongoing lady bits avoidance dance and Boo is just happy as a kid in a candy shop. Or a dog in a crotch. Finally, this past weekend I lightly pushed Boo's head away and said, "gettin' fresh, Boo," thinking that this might call his position to attention. The old man just stared blankly at me then continued on with whatever he was saying before.

What do you say to the man who continuously fails to notice or care that his dog's head is wedged between your legs? Excuse me, sir? Could you please not let your dog shove his nose up my vajay? Mmmm thanks. It's gotten to the point where I'll turn corners to avoid Boo and his owner if I happen to see them out walking because I'm just not particularly in the mood to be sexually assaulted at the moment. But I feel a little guilty about it because the old man probably doesn't get to shoot the shit with many people throughout the day and now I'm denying him that too?

I should just start walking the dog after happy hour because I'm much more amenable to groping after a couple drinks. Now that I think about it, this whole Boo thing reminds me of a guy I once dated. ZING.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-12-07T07:42:00.002-05:00

I've had a very harried past couple weeks at work and I've found that more often than not this week, I'm in need of some mellow tunes. Billy and I caught the tail of The Civil Wars set in between our walk from Amos Lee to M. Ward at the Newport Folk Fest this past summer and it was one of those moments you have at every music festival when you have to make the decision between two really awesome bands and it kind of breaks your heart. It's like choosing between awesome and awesome, which is awesomely difficult. But alas, we had to walk away from The Civil Wars.

Anyway. One of the albums on rotation for me this week is that very band and my goodness. It's just what I needed.

Final Marathon Musings

2011-12-01T10:54:00.009-05:00

I was working from home today so I had wanted to get this post out early this morning but when I woke up the Internet wasn't working and then I had real work to do so I had to go somewhere to do it but then Comcast sent someone over and before you know it, I had just spent the last three hours with the Comcast technician talking about jobs, life, cancer, his three-year stint in the Navy, fatherhood, dogs with giant balls, and our own realizations about finding true happiness. Heavy shit, man.

I would like you all to picture this going down while we both sat Indian-style on my living room carpet while occasionally hitting refresh on my Internet home screen and sometimes plugging and unplugging something. I'm no fan of Comcast, but by mid-afternoon I was giving my new friend Dave a hug and wishing all of his family a very happy holidays season, especially his children, all of whom I know by name. And viola! I have Internet once again. Thank you for your magic wires, Dave from Comcast. I'll spend a morning on the floor hitting refresh for you any day.

Anyway. With the marathon now a few weeks behind me, I've had some time to reflect. I may have missed my goal but I still ran a relatively respectable time, which was my fastest to date. And even though I do still kind of wish I'd just gone ahead and peed my pants, I've let that self-loathing wash down the drain with the leftover pickle juice that I couldn't convince B to finish drinking even though I made it VERY enticing. To his credit, he sure did try.

Unlike this time last year, I'm completely injury free and I'm not walking like someone with a gigantic pole stuck up their ass, so that's a total plus too. Because we all know I get a little ... hard to live with ... when I can't lace up a pair of sneaks and pound out my mildly psychotic tendencies on the pavement.

By the Thursday after the marathon, Thanksgiving, I was back out running, albeit very slowly. The next day I went a little further. And further the next day. And one week later I am feeling completely recovered. Without the pressure of trying to achieve a certain time at a race hanging over my head, I am back out running for the pure love of running again. Minus one toenail.

I found running the way most people find religion. I grew up with it. And ironically, it was in avoiding religion that I truly made it my own. When I was in high school, I discovered that it took me approximately the same time to run six miles as it did to sit through a Catholic mass. So on Sunday mornings I'd assure my parents I was on my way to church, slip outside in my running shoes and go for a spin. In college, I became even more religious with my running (see what I did there?) since I no longer had a track team to keep me in shape. I found the half-marathon. A few years after college came the marathon. And since then it's been a never-ending challenge of longer, faster, stronger, and not peeing my pants. And let me tell you something, I promise you that you are forced to make just as much if not more peace with yourself, your life, and your god on any long, hard training run than you would in a pew. As Christopher McDougall wrote, "If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them." And as Bridget Horne wrote, "oh my god I'm going to pee my pants."

Even though I hate it, I absolutely love the marathon. The months leading up to a marathon, I begin to obsess over it more and more, until it finally takes up whatever space is left in my brain that isn't thinking about food. And then that's about all I think about until race day. Marathon and food. My memory starts to go. I forget entire conversations I've had with people and for once, it's not because of those three martinis I had last night. It's like a constantly ticking clock in my brain until finally I'm so excited to run the marathon for the mere fact that I can stop thinking about running the marathon.

And of course, during the marathon, typically between miles 22 and 25, I swear off marathons for the rest of my life. I despair over the fact that I am still moving my legs and I have to continue to put one foot in front of the other for how many more miles? Four? Oh, Jesus Christ. NEVER AGAIN. By the next morning, I'm usually scanning the Internet for the next opportunity to run another 26.2 miles.

And then there's the fact that it seems like such a shame to spend all those months training for just one morning of running, don't you think? Might as well take advantage of this peak fitness. That's exactly how I convinced myself to run a 50k trail run in January. Because if 26.2 miles hasn't made me cry yet, why not shoot for 31?! B is taking this current news as a serious sign that I have officially "fallen over that ledge." It'll be great!

And finally this has nothing to do with running but I received a couple emails yesterday asking me if I do in fact dance around my house in my underwear singing songs into a spatula. Let's not be ridiculous. I use a wooden spoon. And good thing Dave from Comcast wasn't early, because I had the music turned up to 11 while I was making soup this morning.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-11-30T08:37:00.005-05:00

Please accept my humblest apologies for my Yella absence. I was home in Philadelphia for the week following the marathon and that quickly escalated into a happy little bender while I caught up with family and friends. By the end of the week I was so wine-ed out I barely knew how to spell my name or what to do with myself. So, naturally, I switched the beer and kept on keepin' on.

I have a lot to catch you up on. Like my final musings on the marathon. And my mini-vacation at home. And the coma I ate myself into on Thanksgiving. The most pressing update on my mind is the fact that B and I started watching "American Horror Story" and now I'm so afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night that I turn on every single light I can reach on my way, refuse to look into the bathroom mirror, and won't even risk glancing down the stairs or out the window. This gets annoying when you have the bladder of an incontinent old woman like I do.

But I'll get in to all that later because it's Song of the Week Time, ya'll!!1! Which means I get one more day to phone it in and I'll take it.

I recently came across this old Nick Lowe classic and I am loving all over it. There's nothing that makes me want to dance around my house in my underwear while singing into a spatula quite like this song at the moment.

The day after the Marathon

2011-11-21T13:54:00.002-05:00

My friend @BrendanJKearney sent this video to me today and it's so spot on I can't not share. I'm not even kidding when I say that it's currently 1:57 p.m. and I've only gone downstairs once today because I just can't handle trying to walk down stairs right now and once was enough. Instead I've spent the entire day shuffling between the chair I'm sitting in right now, the couch, and the bathroom. There's nowhere else to go up here and I'm okay with that right now. My water glass is currently empty and I'm considering just filling it at the bathroom sink which normally grosses me out but desperate times call for desperate measures, my friends. I would pay someone good money ($3.47, a bunch of coupons to CitySport, and a Victoria's Secret gift card, which is everything I have in my wallet right now that could possibly be of value, including the wallet itself) to deliver me a tall glass of ice water and a cheesesteak.

Fear and loathing at the Philadelphia Marathon

2011-11-21T09:06:00.012-05:00

Boy ohhhhh boy was I cocky going in to this marathon. I thought I had it in the bag. I started out with a goal in mind, and then was so confident in myself that I lowered that goal by another five minutes a month before the race. I was going to qualify for the Boston Marathon, with room to spare. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?

My training was awesome. Harder and faster and rougher than ever before. When people asked, I told them my goal. Not my first one, but my second, even faster one. I uttered those words out loud over and over again. I said them so many times I began to believe that I could do it. I had it in the bag. It would be tough, but my training all added up. My last 22-mile training run had me almost exactly on pace. All I had to do was run the way I trained. So what did I do?

I got so overly excited that I flew out of the starting chute, ran an average of 7:30 minute-miles for the first nine miles because I was feelin' goooood, slowed it down to what I should have been running all along until mile 18, and then totally crashed. Like, totally CRASHED.

I spent the next 8.2 miles bathing in waves of self-loathing for being oh-so-cocky and running the first half marathon oh-so-fast. That, and trying my damnedest not to pee my pants. In fact, the oh my god I'm going to pee my pants moments got so intense by the time I hit downtown Manayunk that I realized if I didn't pull over and pee in between a pair of parked cars RIGHT NOW I really was going to pee my pants. I spent the next few minutes debating between the two and opted to pop-a-squat in a Manayunk parking lot for the sole reason that I was worried about the chafing. I just wasn't wearing the right shorts for pee pee. I left my pee pants at home.

This has never happened to me during a marathon, likely because I've never had to drink so much. It was hot and I was thirsty. For the second half, I was taking a minimum of two full cups at each water stop. Usually, I take a single swig and throw the rest of my cup away. I just couldn't get enough fluid yesterday. Clearly, I had a little too much.

The last four miles were excruciating, but that's nothing new. The finish line chute -- usually my favorite part of the race -- was a never-ending blur. JESUS CHRIST JUST END were the only words going through my head. Only by then I was so fried they cycled around in a jumbled mix of words. JESUS CHRIST JUST END. CHRIST END JESUS JUST. END JESUS JUST CHRIST. JEBUS CHRIZ JERST FREND.

And finally it did. A full five minutes slower than my goal. My first goal. If we want to get technical, that's a full 10 minutes slower than my second goal. I SHOULD HAVE JUST PEED MY PANTS. I wasted valuable seconds behind that car. But what can ya do? GOD DAMNIT I TRAINED HARDER THAN THAT. If I had run smart -- with the same, consistent pace I did for my last long run -- I would have hit my first goal without a problem. Cocky, cocky, cocky. I still got a PR by a full five minutes, so I'm trying my hardest to keep that in mind, despite all of the familiar self-loathing that is circling through my head right now. GAH. WHATVER. SOMEONE GET ME A TURKEY.

It's hard when you've trained for something since JULY and all along you think you've got it and then you realize you don't, while trying to remind yourself that you still completed your fourth marathon with a pretty good time that's still your best time and their a larger problems in the world like war, and famine, and Republicans. But I still kind of feel the way Andy Dwyer did when he learned he wouldn't be playing with laser guns in laser class.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue to shuffle around my parents' house in slippers and elastic-waisted pants, eating all their brand name food that I can't afford, and watching their cable television that I refuse to pay for at home.

Emails from my Mom

2011-11-17T17:49:00.006-05:00

click to enlarge

Hahahahaha poop ... DAMNIT she knows me so well.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-11-16T08:55:00.005-05:00

I'm running the Philadelphia Marathon this weekend, and for this week's Song of the Week, I had wanted to do some kind of homage to the songs and artists that got me through the past four months of training, namely TV on the Radio, Nicki Minaj, and Lupe Fiasco. While I do use an iPod for my long runs while training, I never run races with headphones, but after Mojo sent me Rihanna's latest single, I considered making a marathon playlist with "We Found Love" on repeat for three and a half hours. Plus maybe an "Eye of the Tiger" in there for good measure. It's the Philly Marathon, people.

But then on the way to my Back on My Feet run this morning, "Streets of Philadelphia" came on the radio, so of course I have to use that for this week's pick 'o the week. It's a sign. This will be a great race. I will not shit my pants. I will not shit my pants. I will not shit my pants.

I always get a tad bit emotional whenever I go home to Philadelphia and this song just gets me all choked up. Gonna go out on a limb here and say this is one of my favorite songs of all time. Of all time. I cannot wait to go home. So here's to pounding pavement for 26.2 miles on the streets of Philadelphia.

Treat your beaver well

2011-11-14T07:31:00.002-05:00

I feel like I need to preface this post by making it abundantly clear that I am absolutely 100 percent against fur in fashion. I think it's cruel, disgusting, and a tremendous waste of money. I'm no naked, red paint tossing PETA girl, but I am a bleeding heart liberal with a soft spot for anything warm and fuzzy with a pulse.

That said, I have a confession: I've been wearing beaver. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, just let me explain. For my big fat gay Halloween party with Michael in Provincetown, I decided to dress as David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. Because what better costume for a straight girl in Provincetown than the glitter bedazzled androgynous pop star himself? And WOO was that a night. I saw more men in bulging spandex that night than an Olympic gymnastics competition.

To perfect my costume, I had gone on the hunt for a fake fur coat to keep me warm, as I anticipated a lot of our evening would be spent outside which, as you can imagine, can be quite chilly this time of year on Cape Cod. My mother-in-law called a few days before Halloween with her results. "I found you a fur coat," she told me. "But there's a problem ... it's real fur."

Naturally I didn't feel comfortable with it. Not only because it was real fur and I would have trouble throwing red paint on myself, but because -- and most definitely more importantly -- I did not trust myself to be in charge of someone else's expensive thing. Because what do I do to expensive things? I lose then. Or break them. Or drop them in toilets in bar bathrooms. Or leave them sitting on train seats. Or run them over with my car. Or drive them into stone walls. Or leave them under a chair in an airport terminal. Or crash them. I do not have a good track record for expensive things.

"Oh, you can definitely borrow it," my mother-in-law assured me. "It belongs to my friend. She says it's perfectly fine. She hasn't worn it in 20 years. It's beaver."

Welp, I figured. It's Halloween. It's not like I'm really wearing it. It's a costume. It's not for real. It's just one night.

So on my way to Provincetown, I stopped and picked up the full-length beaver coat. And damn that thing was heavy ... and ... soft. Unfortunately, the night of the Halloween extravaganza on the streets of P-Town turned into a classic New England Nor'easter. I'm talking an intense storm. I'm talking broken umbrellas every which way and wind strong enough to knock a drunk blond girl right on over. But we raged on. We battled 50 m.p.h. gusts of wind and sheets of rain just to show off our glitter and drink as many gin and tonics as we could shove down our gullets in a 12-hour period. So as to not completely ruin the expensive thing in my possession, the coat didn't make an appearance that night. I assume dead beavers don't like to get wet.

The next morning the wind and rain subsided and when in P-Town ... you wear your beaver proudly because, honey, I promise you won't be judged. So I loaded my arms up with all of my bags and put my rain boots on and wrapped myself up in that big, glorious, full-length fur coat for my walk across town to the car. I was violently hungover and you know what? It felt kind of nice to be wrapped in a once-living fur cocoon of warmth and softness. It was kind of like wearing a large, heavy cloud. Or wrapping yourself in your softest collection of stuffed animals. Like the nice ones that the Hallmark stores used to sell. I couldn't stop caressing myself. I was in P-Town, remember, so I hardly stood out from the crowd while standing on the crowded street corner wrapped in fur rubbing myself.

I cannot even begin to tell you how many references I made to touching, rubbing, caressing, and caring for my beaver I made in just those few short hours.

Michael and I walked into a local convenience store and stocked up on snacks and smoothies for the ride home and no one even batted an eye at me. It was freeing. Like realizing you can walk around naked while everyone else is wearing clothes without anyone noticing. A dream come true for people like me who hate pants. A dream come true. It affected me. It emboldened me.

My head may be pounding and I may be considering where I can safely throw up my breakfast, but at least I am wrapped in the arms of warmth and comfort. And beaver.

It was just a couple hours in the coat. It was okay. I wasn't wearing it for serious. It was just, like, a joke or something. For a little bit. When I got home, I quickly hung the coat in a corner in the dining room so I could return it to its owner.

Later that night I went to take the dog outside before bed. The wind was howling again so I headed towards the closet to grab a coat. On my way I passed the fur. Whatever, it was dark. No one would see me. It's just so warm. I wrapped myself up again and headed outside with Roo.

The next morning I did the same thing.

And then again that night.

And the next night.

B mocked me mercilessly for prancing around in the backyard covered in a fur coat. BUT IT'S JUST SO WARM. I'VE NEVER BEEN SO WARM IN MY LIFE. IT'S LIKE AN IMPENETRABLE FORTRESS OF WARMTH AND HAPPY THINGS. You know I hate winter. I can't stand being cold. This was solving a very basic need. Every time I slipped into the coat I sang myself my fur coat song, sung to the tune of CSNY's "Teach Your Children Well." Basically, I just substituted the word "treat" for "teach" and "beaver" for "children" because THAT'S AWESOME. TREAT YOUR BEAVER WELL?OMG IT'S HILARIOUSSSSSS. LOOK AT ME WALKIN' 'ROUND IN A FUR COAT SINGIN' SONGS AND LOVIN' LIFE IN MY BEAVER COAT. And once again, I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I told B to just relax, try it, and go ahead and touch my beaver. SORRY, MOM, EARMUFFS.

"That's not your coat," B would respond. "You have to take it back."

"I will. I will take it back. Just ... tomorrow ... I'll take it back tomorrow." I promised every day.

Then finally it happened.

I took Rooney out early one morning, wrapped in the coat as usual, sporting old sweatpants, slippers, and lacking a bra. I waved to the neighbors. Whatever, I thought, they can't see what I'm wearing from there. They'll just think it's a coat. A really big coat. And suddenly the dog took off. In a mad dash he chased a squirrel up a tree in the neighbors' yard. I yelled for him to come back, walking as far as the end of our yard. Please don't make me do it, please don't make me do it, please don't make me do it. But he wouldn't come. He sprinted through the neighbors' yard, running from kid to kid and lolling his stupid dog tongue and barking happily.

Cursing to myself, I hiked up the coat and climbed the stone wall separating our back yards.

"Aaaaand good morning, neighbor," my neighbor smiled, eyebrows about as high as the tree that idiot squirrel has made his escape in.

"Yeah, hi, it's not my coat, I just ... it was for Halloween. I just need to give it back. But you know. WHATEVER IT'S WARM ..." I trailed off as he stood there, beaming at me while his kids ran around the yard with Rooney. When I finally grabbed the dog and shooed him back into our yard, our neighbor on the other side was walking out of her back door with her dog. Neighbor dog came lopping over to play with Rooney and she followed behind.

"Hi," I blurted out before she could even open her mouth. My already bed head hair was askew. I was still panting from climbing the stone wall between properties. The hem of my pants were muddy. Aaaaaand I was wearing a giant fur coat. First I was the neighbor who passes out in her back yard. Then I was the neighbor who rents gigantic inflatable toys so she can drink herself stupid and make inappropriate jokes with neighborhood parents. And now this.

Whatever. OWN IT. "Do you like my coat?"

The next evening I went looking for my beaver coat and it was gone. B had taken it back for me. My beaver coat was gone forever.

Or at least until next Halloween.

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-11-09T15:37:00.003-05:00

Woah. I am like, way late on today's Song of the Week. But it's wooooooorrrthhh itttttttt. BAM:

Dude stole my moves. Seriously.

Monday, thus far

2011-11-07T11:48:00.001-05:00

Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-11-02T13:22:00.005-04:00

Last night B and I went to the Chromeo concert and WOW. Every time I've seen this band in concert I think I've danced harder than the show before. Now, I'm not one of those girls who slips on her stilettos every Friday to go dancing at the clerb, but when I'm at Chromeo show, shit gets real. I can't not dance my face off. The entire time. Best of all, B goes nuts. Like, nuts. No one loves a good Chromeo performance more than B, and when that boy starts to move those hips, how can you not join in? We worked up a sweat ifyouknowwhatimean. Yeah, I mean we danced. A lot. It was fun.

So today, let's have a little Chromeo dance party YEA?! YEA! Put your party pants on, people. It's Chromeo-OOOOOooo.

It's taper time, ya'll!!1!?!1tdjkahakhyyyzzk

2011-11-01T07:29:00.003-04:00

Last Friday I completed my last long training run for the upcoming Philadelphia Marathon. I took the morning off of work and pounded pavement for 22 miles. And now that I'm done with the longest, most intense training period of my life, I must say I have mixed emotions.

Every year I would look forward to the last day of school like a rabid maniac. I would dream about it. As the day grew closer my attention span would become smaller and smaller until all I could think about was bursting out of the classroom doors, tearing my school uniform off my body as I ran down the street to spend the next three months at the local swim club and barefoot nights on steamy streets and vacations down the shore. But when the day finally did arrive, I'd always get a little misty-eyed. Or how I had to pull over on to the side of the road on my way home from college graduation because I was crying so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Or how my first apartment was the size of most homes' kitchen pantries, had a horrible mouse problem, and no storage and when I moved out I sat on the stairs crying for half an hour because I know the rattling windows kept me up all night but I'll miss them so much. So much, so much. Mind you, I was moving one floor down. One floor. I now invite you to imagine the scene everyone encountered the day I moved from Philadelphia to Boston. It wasn't pretty, ya'll. I imagine the claw marks are still on the front porch. I'm still not ready to talk about it. B re-lives it every night in his nightmares. I have a problem with endings. Like, the ending part of them.

That's kind of how I feel right now. On a slightly smaller scale. I just busted my ass for almost four months. Sweating and spitting and cursing and swearing off alcohol forever. I'd spend my long runs fantasizing about the Saturday morning I could wake up and not have 20-miles to check off my To Do list. But then after my run I'd walk around the rest of the day like the queen of the fucking universe. No I will not do those dishes, I JUST RAN 22 MILES, ASSHOLE. SOMEBODY GET ME A BEER. Plus, I was ecstatic. I felt awesome. I felt accomplished. I was fucking PUMPED. I wanted to celebrate! And now that I don't have any long runs left to do, I'm a little upset about it.

The next big ticket item on my To Do list is the marathon itself on November 20. Running the marathon is a lot like the four-months of training it takes to get there, all condensed into a single morning. Training usually goes something like this for me throughout the months: positivity -> elation -> fun -> blood, sweat, tears -> Mein Kampf -> more fun -> more pain -> why the fuck do I do this to myself -> surprise! -> elation -> despair -> elation -> self-loathing -> despair again -> panic -> kind of fun -> loneliness -> hope -> oh god, oh god, oh god it's ending -> fun -> extreme elation like you would not motherfricking believe. Now cram all of that into a few hours and you basically understand what it is to marathon.

Being as I trained harder than ever before for this marathon, I assume the taper period will be particularly bothersome. Holy endorphins withdrawal, ya'll! Imagine getting a big ol' jolt of happy place endorphins injected into your arm four times a week for four months, and then having that slowly taken away. Better yet, imagine being able to eat and drink whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted and STILL lose weight. Would I like a donut with my coffee? I'll take six.

All that's over now. In about a week I'll feel fat, lifeless, and have the attention span of a rodent. And not those smart laboratory rats that find their way through mazes either. More like the hamster who ate all it's little hamster pellets, couldn't figure out how to get out of the plastic tube, and suffocated to death. So yeah.

Philly or bust, baby! Oh sweet baby jesus I hope I don't blow this.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T14:37:00.002-04:00

I just got back from a Halloween weekend in Provincetown. I don't even know what to say except Do you know how much fun gay Halloween parties are? Times ten.

via Who Says Women Aren't Funny

Updated: Wednesday's Song of the Week

2011-10-26T04:44:00.005-04:00

I recently came across this pretty incredible video that follows trick biker Danny MacAskill as he journeys through the Isle of Skye countryside, thanks to my friend Rob. It was Rob who showed me this video. DO YOU GUYS KNOW MY FRIEND ROB? HE SHOWED ME THIS VIDEO. IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE ROB IS TOO. And the thing that struck me almost as much as the amazing footage and stomach-flipping-inducing skills of this guy was how great the music backdrop was. Meet my new friends, Loch Lomond and the Jezabels.

I am digging Loch Lomond's Wax and Wire right now and have quickly become a huge fan of just about everything by the Jezabels. I had a really hard time deciding which song to use as this week's Song of the Week, so I decided to just use Danny's video and give you both! None of the videos I found for either of these songs do them justice quite like this video does anyway. They're gripping songs that deserve equally gripping imagery. This isn't just trick biking. This is bicycle as art. Love, love, love, love.

Missing: one earring, pint of blood, dignity

2011-10-25T07:32:00.003-04:00

BOY was I riding a high horse of I don't get black out shit faced pass out on the kitchen table in a pile of cold macaroni and cheese drunk on my birthday anymore on Friday. Because you know what I did on Saturday? I got a wee bit tipsy.

On Saturday I went out to dinner with a large group of family and friends and once I got a few martinis in me, I was rubber-faced before the main course even arrived. I imagine by the time we walked over to the bar, the words coming out of my mouth were mostly incoherent and possibly aggressive slurs.

When I woke up on Sunday morning I wasn't sure if I was lying in a grisly murder scene or a drunk asshole's bedroom. I was fully clothed, my sheets were covered with blood, and I had evidently taken the time before collapsing into to bed to fling a laundry basket of questionably clean clothes, a pile of books, and a few glasses of water all over the room, including all over my alarm clock. Why? I have no idea. A fit of rage? A feng shui adjustment? The voices told me to? So yeah, I suppose it was a birthday success.

The source of the blood, of course, was from my elbow which, incidentally, was my last memory of the evening but once they put on Bruce Springsteen and you know what? Nevermind, let's not get into it. But let's just say that it's Tuesday morning and I'm still bleeding from the arm and I am beginning to think that yes, maybe I should have gotten those stitches but that would have been, just, like, so annoying and someone get me another round!

And of course, my birthday present to myself was a hangover so bad I couldn't look anyone in the eyes on Sunday. I was cold, shaking, pale, watering in the back of the throat, and struggling to form complete sentences. I tried to mask my misery with the largest ice coffee I could get my palsied hands on and a giant cinnamon sugar bagel but nothing was kicking this doozie. Loaves of bread and all the bacon grease you could fit into an oil barrel would not have been able to undo what I did. I felt physically ill until late Monday afternoon. I was sickeningly jealous of everyone else in the world who felt normal while I wandered around in my sub-human state of misery.

Naturally, as each year gives me worse and worse hangovers, I can only imagine what I have in store for myself in the future. By the time I get to my 30th birthday, I assume I'll be hungover until my 31st birthday. Guh.

Thanks for all the birthday loving, friends. You really took care of me this year. And I will get you back for that.

The screen door slams

Mary's dress waves ...