Speed, old friends, and imminent death

I saw something pretty neat this morning…I was on the bus and about three stops before mine, this little guy in a jumpsuit gets on with his toolbox. I assumed he was just another passenger but he immediately opened up the fare machine and started tinkering around with it, trying to fix it. The cool thing was, this dude was FAST. He whipped out his wrench, messed around inside the box a little bit, switched out a modular part and then put everything back together again. It took him less than 30 seconds…incredible. Now I know it is easier for him because it looks like the moving parts come out in one big section that he can swap out with another, but I still can’t even imagine the pressure I would feel if I had to jump on a bus in front of all of the passengers, find the problem and fix it in 30 seconds. Crazy.

Everything has been fairly normal lately. Through the magic of MySpace I had a chance to reconnect with an old friend last week, which was awesome because the last time he and I interacted I was a total ass to him. This way I get a chance to apologize and finally assuage that guilt. Thank you MySpace! Plus, he seems like a good dude and, as my mom likes to say, “it’s always good to have another friend.”

Speaking of friends, my little fledgling friends list is up to 17 right now. I added some more friends from high school and college this week. It’s incredible to me that I could have found them all out there…that people I thought I would never see or talk to again are just sitting out there like little easter eggs, waiting to be found.

My boss caught me on the internet last week and I felt so douchey about the whole thing that I vowed to quit getting on the web during work, cold turkey. It’s been interesting…it really is a deep-seated habit. I had to delete any shortcuts to the web off of my desktop so I will think before just going there. I have been getting on the web at home and I have been really good about not getting online at work, but I still find myself some mornings thinking about something I’m going to check on the internet when I get to work and I have to remind myself of the whole self-imposed ban on the internets at work. It’s slow going, but I will break the habit for good eventually.

There was a big plant sale in Pioneer Square last week and my friend William came back with several plants that he gave to me…little did he know that his kind and thoughtful act would result in those plants’ imminent and torturous death. I mean, they haven’t died yet, and I absolutely have every intention of attempting to keep them alive, but I’m pretty sure they are going to die. I’ve never been very good with plants. I love them and I want them to thrive, but I usually end up giving them either way too much or not enough attention and they shrivel and die before my eyes before I can figure out what it is I’m doing wrong. Oh well…I guess I can’t expect to be good at absolutely everything. :)

The nefarious 5k

Okay, so Saturday was the Mt. Tabor Challenge 5k. I had really been going back and forth over the past month, trying to decide if I was going to go through with it since I hadn't been training much lately. Last week, I got an email from the race's organizers that said that the 5k course was mostly flat with some gentle sloping downhills, so I said "sure, why not?" and decided once and for all that I would do the race. One thing I should have thought about: Mt. Tabor is a mountain (albeit a tiny one), so there's no way the race course can just be flat and downhill. For one thing, just to get to the packet pickup I had to walk a significant way up the mountain(the road to which was neither flat nor gently downhill). So finally I get up to packet pickup, I get my number pinned on, I'm ready to go, and then a guy announces that the start of the race is actually at the very top of the mountain, so I still have a ways to go before I can even start! So I climb the rest of the way and I'm already huffing and puffing and sweating. I'm looking around at the other people running the race and I realize that I am going to be in the back of the pack pretty quickly since there aren't that many participants. Any fantasies I had of not being the last finisher go out the window at this point. I'm going to be last...the question is just how much farther am I going to be behind everyone.

So the race organizer gets his airhorn out and starts the race. It looks like I'm the only one walking, because I am immediately in the back of the pack. This was such a tough blow, emotionally, that I seriously thought about just quitting right then and walking back down to the car. I kept myself going by deciding I was going to duck out as the course went past the finish line the first time (it was set up so you do a small loop at the top of the mountain, go through the finish area, then do a big loop around the whole park and come back to the finish). So I did my small loop and start climbing the hill (uphill again? really?) to the finish area, just about ready to pack it in. At this point, my adrenaline must have kicked in or something, because for a minute I felt like I could really finish the whole race. I gave my iPod to T (who was waiting at the finish line to cheer me on), since it was just getting in my way, and I continued on the course.

About a half a mile further, I completely regretted that decision. I came to a hill that seemed to go on forever. It was a gradual slope but since it just kept going (for about a mile, I think), it really took all I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I began to wonder if it really was possible for me to finish the race. Was I going to keel over? Was I going to puke? Was I going to roll down the hill and into some underbrush where nobody would ever find me again? The only thing that kept me going at that point was that I didn't know how to get back to my car except for following the race course. So I kept putting one foot in front of the other and breathing and just tried to get through it. Finally I got to the top of the hill where the course looped back on itself so I knew I was relatively close to the finish. I had a tiny bit of energy left, so I kicked it up a bit so I could get up that last hill. I finished with a time of 1 hour and 13 minutes...not too bad...at least I wasn't hours and hours behind everyone else.

It was a good experience and I'm glad I did it, but I am definitely going to train more and get into better shape before the next race. I'm also going to make sure the next one is on a flat course and not a frickin' mountain!

That's me, after the race!

Fat Girl Speaks!

T and I went to Fat Girl Speaks! on Saturday. It was fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Here's an excerpt about it from an email to my brother:

Think about it: you have this physical characteristic that has defined you for your whole life and you simultaneously hate it and feel like you would miss it if it weren't there. Then, you enter this room full of women who share the exact same characteristic, so now you're not so special anymore. And part of you relaxes because you don't have to be defensive about it, and part of you feels so ordinary and plain since everyone else looks just like you.

And the women in this room are all super-excited about and celebrating this thing that you have felt ambivalent about your whole life, and you realize that there really is a different way to look at it and that you don't have to be stuck in your same old perceptions, but then what does that really mean about you? Are you no longer allowed to hide behind this characteristic and not take risks? Do you really have to get out there and live your life and put an end to the struggle that has, in some ways, defined your life up until now? And you know you still live in the real world, so the vast majority of people you see every day will still have the same old ideas about you and your worth because of this characteristic. And you're considering doing things that kind of buck the system and the status quo, like wearing things that draw attention to yourself and maybe not hiding and being apologetic for the way you are. And that is incredibly scary, because you feel like your inhibitions are what have kept you safe in this world, like you've been playing by the rules which is why most people leave you alone and don't give you trouble, so conversely, if you start not playing by the rules, that makes you fair game for any jackass with an agenda about your body or your life.

So, fascinating because it changed my perception about some things and opened my eyes to things I was believing about myself that were untrue...and terrifying because with new truth comes new responsibility.

Anyway, it was a very cool experience and I'm totally glad we went!

PS: I think I lost about 4 pounds because I can weigh myself on the scale now. Not sure how to feel about that. Yay because I'm accomplishing what I set out to do, boo because it's hard to be excited about changing yourself when you're simultaneously trying to love yourself the way you are :)