| ||||
| So, I was on the DL about it (as the kids say), but I did another 5K today, the MOM's Run. I logged a 37:55! Beats my St. Patty's race time of 41:18, which makes me happy, and is only a minute and a half longer than my best gym time. I don't know what any of that means, but I feel pretty good. Later, I did about the same distance on the bike, which is nowhere near as strenuous but I couldn't let a lovely afternoon like this one pass me by without being outdoors some more. Otherwise, I dithered the afternoon away mostly by poking around online, including the purchase of some replacement shoes on Shoebuy.com (20% off for Mother's Day, woo!). I have a heap of dishes to do from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} prevenger's awesome cooking for tamalinn's potluck dinner party last night. He cooked rum-infused Shepherd's Pie and Blue Cake with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting... yum. Leftovers tonight!This week, I need to do laundry. Tomorrow, really -- before the premiere of the second season of American Gladiators! I want to hit the gym once I've given my legs sufficient recovery time. I'd love to get some softball practice in before the season starts next week (!!!!!!!) but the weather may be uncooperative. I also want to take myself out on a date to see "Smart People" and get some Pho Pasteur, dagnabit. Oh, life. | ||||
comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
Dear Mr. Henshaw
|
|||||||||||||
May 11th, 2008
May 6th, 2008
| ||||||||||
| comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
April 30th, 2008
| ||||||
| This is just an unsolicited plug urging you all to buy the new Cloud Cult album, "Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)." It is a beautiful, lush, unabashedly sentimental and true work. Please buy it. Here is one reason why. | ||||||
| comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
April 27th, 2008
| ||||||
| Low-key weekend, more or less. Had a tearful goodbye to my boss this past week, who is on his way to success in his new career as a lawyer. Drinks out with co-workers on Friday, then watching the Sox game with lizzyclean, Chris and grapefruiteater. Saturday brought breakfast with kalimeraonlj, getting my bike back from the shop (!!!) and riding it home, a long walk with prevenger around Cambridge, then a fun steak dinner out with lizzyclean, Chris and Justin. Today was the opposite, just low key hangoutage with prevenger -- including a gym trip, where I logged a new personal best on my infamous gym 5K. 37:29! Oh yeah. I am not quite ready for the workweek to begin. I guess that five-day weekend last week spoiled me a bit, eh? | ||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 22nd, 2008
| ||||||
| Since schmarian says no one posts to LJ anymore... List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good... but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to. Easy. There is a handful of songs I have been obsessed with lately. (Some links are MP3s, some are streams.) 1) Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal Some of the most beautiful harmonies I've heard in a long while. Charming and eerie and gorgeous. 2) Portishead - Machine Gun This beat gets in your head and doesn't get out. 3) Cloud Cult - The Ghost Inside Our House The lyrics really resonated with me, and it's a tender love song, to boot. 4) Islands - Creeper / The Arm I can't wait until this album comes out next month. These songs are energetic and bizarre and fun. 5) Elbow - Starlings One of the most starkly beautiful love songs I've ever heard. 6) Lykke Li - Little Bit Very fun and cute and catchy. 7) Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Modern Mystery Another one that resonates with me along the lines of "The Ghost Inside Our House," though not as strongly. | ||||||
| comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
April 11th, 2008
| ||||||||||
| I'm three hours (or less) away from being back in Boston. I've been in San Diego since Tuesday at a higher ed online communications conference. I got to hang with kyten while I was here, which was great. Let me tell you one amazing thing that happened. I have this dark corduroy cap that I love. In cooler weather, I am more or less inseparable from it. I had stuffed it into the front flap of my bag. kyten took me to a great Italian restaurant in Old Town called Volare. Fun was had, but as she was driving me back to my hotel, I had the nagging feeling I'd left my hat there. kyten said she didn't recall me having my hat with me, but sure enough, when I got back to my room, I was hatless. On a lark, I called the restaurant and began babbling about sending money for them to mail my hat back until the guy said, "Well, I'm the delivery guy, I can bring it to your hotel."!!! So, one hour and a tip later, my hat was back in my possession. Volare will forever have a soft spot in my heart for not only being tasty, but nice above and beyond the call of duty. General San Diego pics to come in the next day or so. It bears mentioning that originally, I was supposed to fly American Airlines to Chicago and hang with brantastic for ~12 hours before flying back to Boston on Saturday, but grapefruiteater was nifty enough to rebook my flight so I could avoid the possibility of being one of AA's 3878937 canceled flights. Thanks, grapefruiteater!Hard to believe that next weekend, dontuhatepants will be here. And it should actually *cross fingers* be spring-like!!Great things are happening to people around me, which is wonderful. The next great thing to happen to me will be landing in Boston and being hugged by prevenger. That will rule.Unrelated to anything posted above, jerks really, really suck. | ||||||||||
| comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
April 6th, 2008
| ||||||
| I bought these yesterday. After 28 long years of wanting them, I finally own a set of drums. Well, maybe not a kit, but it is an actual percussion instrument. An upgrade from my shaker egg. I am beyond psyched. | ||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 2nd, 2008
| ||||||
| My lower back has been acting up the past few days, but I was determined to go to the gym this week. I told myself that at the first sign of serious discomfort, I would stop and get dressed and go home. But something in my mind told me, your back won't hurt it all. In fact, running may help. Not rational, I know, but when are the voices in my head ever rational? Then I worked later than I planned to because I was on a roll finishing a story that had been giving me grief. So I thought, I should skip the gym. It's late, I'm hungry, my back hurts. Wah wah. But I went anyways. I did another 5K of sorts. I walked for a tenth of a mile, ran 1.5, walked .5, then ran the last mile. By the end, I felt like I would fall over. But I powered through it. Despite how exhausted I felt, the voices in my head told me that as soon as I was done running, I would feel amazing. And I did. Still came in just over 42 minutes. Believe it or not, one of my favorite parts of going to the gym, beside my "jogger's high," is looking in the mirror after a good workout -- sweaty, bedraggled, red-faced, tired yet energized but both in a good way. I feel pleased. Tomorrow, it will be 56 degrees and sunny. I'm going to walk to work. Spring may finally be creeping its way into town. | ||||||
| comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
March 23rd, 2008
| ||||||||
| Easter? I get it. Big deal. But not only did the grocery store near me close at three (I got there at 4:45), but EVERY pizza place in my neighborhood was closed. What about us heathens? Can't we eat and exchange money for goods and services? What about people like me, who are husbandless for the weekend and want pizza and cereal for dinner? What about our needs? Anyhoo, I managed. I even did laundry at the laundromat which, amazingly, was open (and busy!). Ha. | ||||||||
| comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
March 20th, 2008
| ||||||||
| - After what feels like a long drought of dreamlessness, I have been dreaming richly the past couple of nights. Two nights ago, I dreamed that a co-worker and I were about to topple off of a rickety wooden bridge -- complete with slow motion and the time to repeat in my head over and over as the bridge fell slowly, "I'm going to die. This is it. I'm going to fall and die. This is really happening." -- before we managed to scramble to safety. I also dreamed that ericfaustus had been in a play and I went to the final performance. He was using the pseudonym John Barrow. They gave all the actors bottles of champagne. Then, I had to find my way to the after party, but I had no wallet, no phone, a stolen coat and a horrible dress. My usual chaotic lack-of-resources dream. - There are few joys in life like working up a good honest sweat. Not the Florida sweat that manifests against your will as a function of the environment, or even the bristle of sweat you acquire after chugging to the bus stop or huffing up a flight of stairs. I mean, helping someone move. Going on a long hike. Or, like I did last night, running at the gym. My usual gym routine is a half hour on the elliptical, and while the machine says I typically burn somewhere in the 350-450 calorie range (depending on the machine), it never really feels like it. I'm a bit red faced and sweaty and such, but I don't really feel super-exerted. After 40+ minutes of my jog-walk routine on the treadmill, however, I looked like hell -- but felt great. And the supposed calorie count was the same. It's a mystery, I suppose. | ||||||||
| comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| ||||||
| Wouldn't you like to know? | ||||||
| comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
March 19th, 2008
| ||||
| Life since the 5K: - Monday, I took myself out on a date. I was going to take myself to Pho Pasteur, but we had a nice little party at work with copious amounts of food, so I just got some dessert and made my way to Harvard Sq., where I poked at some clothes (didn't buy anything, though) and did some crossword puzzles. Low key but enjoyable. - Tuesday, I saw "Avenue Q" with prevenger, jiggliusceasar, qarylla, meranthi, whuffle and halleyscomet. HYSTERICAL. Absolutely excellent. I highly recommend. We ate at Tantric, which was pretty good. New LJ icon forthcoming.- Today, I went back to the gym, despite the gross, raw, rainy weather that made me just want to go home. I did another 5K, so to speak, and came in under 42 minutes again, alternating a half mile of jogging with a quarter mile of brisk-walking, eventually upping the treadmill speed from 4.5 to 5.0. Coming up, prevenger leaves tomorrow for Anime Boston. I'm on my own! I'm hopefully going to make it to NYC to see ericfaustus, but if that doesn't happen, I'll have to find a backup plan. Otherwise, lizzyclean's birthday is tomorrow and we're going out to celebrate. Woo! And I have Friday off regardless. I plan on taking myself out to breakfast. Yum.Also, I have an article coming out in this week's Phoenix. Link forthcoming. More stuff may be coming up associated with that, so stay tuned... | ||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
March 17th, 2008
| ||||||
| So yesterday, I participated in my first 5K race ever. My entire training regimen consisted of some treadmill running on Monday and my first outdoor run ever on Thursday morning, which went... well, alright, though less successful than Monday's outing. Pavement is not as kind as an indoor machine. Anyways, I just wanted to have fun and finish under 45 minutes. I mean, I was running (well, walking half a mile, jogging half a mile) with practically everybody I knew. So just have a good time was the baseline. Here are the results. I ran a 41:33! Thanks to hooley, one of my "teammates," I can now call this a PR, or personal record. (Never knew that terminology before.) A time to beat! And I had an awesome time to boot. Some of us, after much confusion, were even able to find someplace to gather for bad food and hard cider. Seriously, the best chicken fingers, fries and Magner's EVER.Congrats to hooley, qarylla, enochs_fable, tamalinn and my Somerville crew who also ran the race. We all did great! (Did I forget anyone?) Thanks especially to Lis, the best ad hoc running coach ever :-)Now to find the next challenge. And a nearby running loop :-) | ||||||
| comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
March 10th, 2008
| ||||||||
| So, yeah, I'm doing a 5K or something on Sunday. I haven't been training. I was just gonna have fun, try my best and see what happened. But tonight at the gym, rather than making a beeline for my beloved elliptical, I decided to do a five minute warmup run on the treadmill. 45+ minutes later, | ||||||||
| comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/bears/sad.gif){kind=small}
sweatyMarch 8th, 2008
| ||||||
| Can someone please tell me why our Wii and DSes connect to our wireless network, as do the laptops of our guests, but not my personal OR work laptop? | ||||||
| comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
March 5th, 2008
| ||||||
Thank you very much for publishing a review of Highland Kitchen on Jan. 19. Your review made me want to try this new dining destination in Somerville. Thank you also for publishing a review of Highland Kitchen on March 5. Your second review reminded me that I hadn't visited the restaurant yet to try it for myself. When I do so, may I submit a third review?Unrelatedly, KEXP is playing "Champs Elysees" right now. We used to sing that song in French class when we had our cool World War II veteran substitute. Apparently, it's on "The Darjeeling Limited" soundtrack. Which reminds me, I need to see that. Gotta get through "Death at a Funeral" first. | ||||||
| comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
February 5th, 2008
| ||||||||||
| So, I voted. After much thought, I ended up voting for Obama. What did it for me? Well, the Iraq thing was big. Honestly, aside from that, I don't hold that much against Hillary Clinton, and I'll support her generally if she ends up being the nominee, but I wanted to vote for someone with no baggage. The idea of Bill being a meddling first husband (or whatever) is off-putting. I think that while Hillary may be more presidential in a conventional sense, maybe we need someone who has been a community organizer, maybe we need someone bringing a multicultural perspective, maybe we need someone who gets people excited (and yes, badlydrawnjeff, that's an important part of it). The two of them line up fairly closely on the issues. It's who you trust the most to get the job done. So that covers it. (I should mention that there is a rollicking debate going on at badlydrawnjeff's journal about Obama and whether or not his supporters know what they're getting into. Go check it out, if you're curious.) But honestly, just get out their and vote, for someone. Your vote counts a lot, and for Mass. residents, it counts for the first time in a while. So, go to it! What else is happening? Life is somewhat calmer than last week. Still writing for the Phoenix (and this week, I'm in Cellars by Starlight! After some small drama, the piece is live, huzzah!). Still breathing. Good times :-) | ||||||||||
| comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/bears/working.gif){kind=small}
votingJanuary 17th, 2008
| ||||||||||
| - I signed up for a 5K! It's in Somerville on Mar. 16. I am apparently insane. I plan to jog/walk it, but to try more jogging than walking. We'll see how this goes. hooley is in with me, it looks like, and maybe some Merry Band members. Exciting! Crazy. - I got a snow day on Monday, which I am still sort of incredulous about. - I am now a slipper-owner, slipper-wearer and slipper-lover. I never thought the day would come. - I have a bunch of little Phoenix projects percolating. Any local (Boston) bands out there anyone wants to pitch me on? :-) - prevenger and I celebrate four years of marriage next weekend. Woo!- If anyone wants to come to River Gods tonight for the Tourfilter DJ night and have a drink with me, let me know. I'll be there as of 9PMish. | ||||||||||
| comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
January 14th, 2008
| ||||||
| ...you log in, look at some of your friends and go, "Hey, none of those folks are single anymore!" *cancels Friendster account* | ||||||
| comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
January 12th, 2008
| ||||||
| As a holiday gift, libation sent me this desk clock with my favorite quote from a JD Salinger book engraved on it: "Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason." (It's from "Seymour: An introduction") There were a few mishaps (originally, the engraving was upside down!) but I got it fixed today and I am psyched to bring it to work on Monday. This is totally one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received. Thanks so much, libation | ||||||
| comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
Dear Mr. Henshaw
|
|||||||||||||