best. shuffle. ever.

on the way home from school tonight:

jay-z .. sleater-kinney .. old crow medicine show .. stars .. kickball .. al green .. okkervil river .. little wings

Campaign news from our nation's capital

• Yesterday on the green line, the man sitting next to me turned and quasi-yelled something at me. I had my headphones on, listening dreamily to the smooth voice of Bob Boilen tell me all about 1000 recordings I had to hear before dying. It took me a minute to get them off and say, intelligently, "huh?" to the man, who then repeated "You vote Obama!?" in a way that I couldn't distinguish between yelling and asking. I quietly said, "uh, yeah" and he yelled again, "You like him!" and I said, "yes" with a bit more confidence and he got up and sat elsewhere. I think he's like one of 6 Republicans around here. Prior to watching Monday night's episode of The Daily Show  (amazing, btw), I would have said this man probably lives in Northern Virginia, but now I'm not even sure. 

• This morning's Post had an amazing article on Sarah Palin's outfits. It is the only article I read this morning while breaking fast. Read it here. I had to get over myself and stop thinking, "why won't the RNC give me even like $500 to go shopping?" and then I donated $25 to the Obama campaign. I think her outfits suck anyway. 

• A nice young man approached me on campus today to solicit money for HRC, which I think is a pretty rad organization as far as organizations go. (I mean, they did sponsor the L Word Season 5 Premier Party, duh). He told me that its illegal in 35 states for gays and lesbians to get married. I said, "lame" and he said, "I know, right." I told him I didn't have any money but I was somehow already on the HRC mailing list and he said, "cool, cuz those right wingers are gonna try to block this bill in Congress to support gay marriage rights." I said, "yeah, they're assholes" and he told me to have a nice day.

• Elsewhere on the internet, Wonkette has been keeping me hilariously entertained this campaign season. This is quite worth 8 minutes of your life.

• Vote for Obama people, seriously. Ok?
  

Virtual to-do list/procrastination

Frankly, this blog does not get updated as frequently as I would like. Like everyone else, I'm pretty busy and I think about you, dear blog, but don't always give you the attention you deserve. In my dreams, you and I are a on the fast track to internet fame, wittingly reporting on the just-slightly-under-the-radar political news, linking to all the best kitten videos on YouTube, and wowing the people with our ability to use HTML. Alas... we're lucky if I update once a week. 

Is being busy an excuse? It has to be, right? Please? I'm in school and school the first time around was pretty hard, I think and then the second time it was a little bit less hard and the workload wasn't overwhelming, but this time it's all holy shit challenging. Not because I'm learning anything that's confusing or tough to grasp, but because I have to read and write and read and write and read and write. I love it though. And, I don't want to sound like the freshman I hear walking around campus in their gym shorts and Terps t-shirts on the phone saying things like, "omg, I like just had to read something. ug." So, I'm not complaining - really - just justifying the infrequent updates of CD. I'm aware of it! I still love you!

Just so you know, sometimes you learn cool things in school. The other day I learned about some non-Google search engines. Try them. Expand your horizons. The first one is pretty no-frills and presents the search results in columns instead of in lines. The second uses a different technique of allowing you to narrow down you search and pick and chose what types of websites you want to look at. It's good for you, ok?

Cuil

Ujiko

So, besides being all dreamy about the potential power of CD in the blogosphere, there are other things I want to accomplish. I thought that maybe if I put them on the internet, someone, somewhere, sometime might hold me accountable for them. 

1. Learn how to use (and actually use) my new camera. This would require sitting down with the manual, trying things out and leaving the house to go places where there are photo opts. I dream big some days. 

2. Clean out my closet. I hate all my outfits right now. I need new ones but Mr. Buddy says I can't get any new ones until I get rid of some current ones. Impasse.

3. Fix my bike. It squeaks, the U-lock bracket fell off this week, the tires need air, and it's a 12-speed but really is, effectively, an 8-speed. I could have probably fixed the U-lock bracket and put air in the tires in the amount of time this blog post is taking me. Shit.

4. Get a pedicure. Seriously. I'm not trying to be fancy. Have you ever trained for a half-marathon? Did you retain all of your toenails? Are they in beautiful shape? Sometimes I think the only people that really understand me are my aunt and the random coffee shop customer who asked me, "do you still have all your toenails?" when I told them about the race. It doesn't even have to be a really fancy pedicure. Toes. Just. Need. Attention. 

5. Move the garden. It's in a shady spot. Nothing grows. Worst garden ever.

6. Do more yoga. I was doing lots before the race training time grew and grew. I'm taking a class now that I sometimes skip because I'm tired and sore from running. 

7. Learn how to do fancy things on the blog. Like build some sort of mp3 player. I want to share so much with you, especially musically. If you know how to do that, email me and let me know. Or, write book reviews. Or, have time to read books that I could write reviews about.  

Ok, now I've shared my (current) secrets and desires with you. I mean them all from the bottom of my heart. But, now I have to go do some homework and then head out to my volunteer shift. Till next time...

Finished!

So, we did it. We ran the half-marathon on Saturday in Baltimore. It was partially amazing and partially horrible, but that's about what I expected. My parents and brother came and helped drive and park and my mom even ran the last mile with me. There are more photos on Flickr, but here are a couple of shots of the race. Yeah, it's a lot of people. I came in somewhere in the 4000's out of 6000-ish runners. Not an amazing placement, but whatevs, you didn't run it, ok? (Unless you're Heather in which case you did, in fact, run it and came in also in the 4000s, but earlier than I did). 

We had tons of amazing Baltimore residents cheering us on from their stoops and SUVs blasting hip hop. Handing out gummy bears and bearing signs that said, "why be the best when you can B-more?" Strung-out, toothless people yelling things like, "you fucking got it! go! run!" Then there were the thousands of visiting spectators around the inner harbor. I mean it when I say they were all being awesome and positive. 

So, yes, I'd do it again, but I'd do some things differently (basically like everything else in life). Yes, I'm going to keep running, but not as much for right now. Yes, I'm sore, but yes, I feel good too. I would run this same race again, even though... Baltimore. Is. Hilly.

Things I can't eat anymore - on a daily basis - once the half-marathon is over

Lately I've been realizing that my snack needs are great. Which makes sense, I'm running a lot and when I'm not running, I'm busy and moving. However, I plan on taking it easy after this weekend's race. I hope that my snack needs will go down because I've become expensive to feed and also it's difficult to plan ahead and bring all of my snacks with me on any given day.

So, after Saturday, I shall try my best to refrain from eating the following things on a regular (ok, daily) basis:

1. a bagel with (two things of) cream cheese

2. 1200 calories before noon

3. breves

4. 2 quorn patties, microwaved, with mayo

5. croissants 

6. peanut m&m's

7. boxes of WF mac & cheese (they're bigger than Annie's)

8. Izze sodas

9. huge portions of 5-6 meals per day

10. whole bags of butter popcorn

Ok, I think that's it. For the record, I have been eating a lot of good things too - fruits, veggies, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, beans, green tea, etc., but I'm ok with that, so I will continue to consume them. But, I probably do not need to eat an entire thing of asparagus, slathered with butter and salt, alone, at 10pm. 

Thursday mornings/seven miles

The past two Thursdays I've gone for a seven mile run in the morning. Heather and I are training for the Baltimore half-marathon. It's next Saturday, October 11th. It's going to be hard. Really hard. All the training I've done has (almost) prepared me for it, but I'm still dreading the last 2-3 miles. You always hear that the race day adrenaline will take you the last bit. The training programs never have you running the full race distance until race day, expecting just that. The long Sunday runs we've been going on (10-11 miles this past month) have been really challenging, to the point where I forget that I like running. I finish and feel like dying, puking, and never running again. So, wtf, right? Why am I doing this? My best guess right now is that I'm doing this for the Thursday morning runs. In the past two weeks I've realized that - hey - I have become a much stronger runner, despite the post-11 mile run feeling. I feel great right now, I felt great over the course of the past just-over-an-hour it took me to run 7 miles. It's fall, it's finally chilly outside, the air is clear and I loved running in it. Please remind me to read this blog post once I'm done throwing up after finishing the half-marathon.