hi

first of all, here's a *new* picture of my niece clara. she's on the right, hanging with pal zady hasse. if you look closely at her, clara looks A LOT like her brother benici. she'll be four months old this sunday. she's grown so much since i've seen her last, and i miss her. i hope that i get more chances to see her. i want so much to connect with her.



so i wouldn't normally bring this up, but today i can blame it on my new doctor. awesome. anyway, i have a new psychiatrist, and doug and i seem to click. and somehow yesterday during our session, the topic of meds and pregnancy came up. i know that i won't have children of my own for a long time, so it's not an immediate issue, but it's still something that i think about. for a woman with any psychiatric disorder, it can be very risky for her and her baby to change her medication routine. there are some drugs that are more dangerous than others, but not even the pharmaceutical (sp?) companies know that much about lamictal and its effects on the child and his or her mother. i don't really have any conclusions about this right now, except (and this might be completely unrelated anyway) that i know that i want a little girl of my own some day. so whatever.

on a lighter note, i had a great workout today. my office's location is primo, in that i can warm-up by jogging by the harbor and then do a workout at Rash Field or Federal Hill. i did Fed. Hill 8x today, and even though it was challenging, i got a lot out of it. granted, by the time i was nearing the crest on #8, my quads were seizing up, and i was basically stumbling to the top. but it was worth it. thank goodness for growing up at Cedar Crest where all we did was hills. hills... yum. my bread and butter.

the only down thing about doing hills today was that i ran into a hater. people know that i run. i love it. it's one of my favorite things in life, so i'm going to try to do it and feel good about it. i don't brag, i don't try to force other people into it, and i don't lord a superiority complex over non-runners. so when i was headed back, i ran into an acquaintance, and the person said, "i hate you." now obviously, it wasn't said with malice. but at the same time, when i passed the run off as a positive experience, largely because it's a gorgeous day outside, the response was "that's why i hate you." what's that about? i'm not taking this personally, except to the degree that i'm wondering why people get this way. are people jealous that somebody is getting outside and exercising, when in fact there is nothing stopping them from doing the same? very rarely is there an actual "i can't;" it's more often than not an "i won't." so i'm not going to do anything about that; it's their problem. and come summer 2006, when i'm looking hot in my brand new two-piece and they're cowering indoors in a pair of overalls, we'll just know who has reaped the better reward. so there, hater.