halloween pix, PART DEUX!

here's phase two, as promised.


rock out, catwoman and batgirl!













i loves my supertoby.






supertoby takes home the "Best Sidekick" award.
:)








God bless Mr. America.











rock star and wrestler. awesome.







electric blue and outrageous orange (susanne & courtney) had the cutest costumes of the night.











catwoman, outrageous orange and batgirl are having a blast.









whatever i try to say about this is bound to be ultra-cheesy, so oh well. since i can't be witty, and i don't really care for whimsical, i can just be... lucky. yeah, lucky, i think. this has been the best halloween in years!

running, + toby in the park

the run was good. i made myself take it easy (or easier, as the case may be), since i was trying to do a little more. i did roland-cold spring-charles/st.paul/charlcote/charles-art museum-wyman-remington-chestnut-home. about 38 min, ~9min. pace. the weather was BEAUTIFUL; i wore shorts and a tank, and that felt lovely. i spent a lot of time looking at my toes though. i'm not sure why. it's not like i was running on trails or anything... i did notice the foliage and everything, and i love being a part of fall. :)

toby had a major breakthrough at the park today. every time that he's escaped the leash, he's taken off running, and it's been horrible trying to catch him. BUT, at the encouragement of other dog owners, i let him off the leash to play with the other dogs. and he was GREAT!!! not only did he have a blast meeting other pups, but he also thoroughly enjoyed the running and wrestling. another big surprise--he actually came back to me when i called him. i thought that even if he did stay that it'd be really hard to get him back on the leash, and it really wasn't at all. and now, barely a half hour later, he's fast asleep on his pillow. hehehe. i think that this might be good for him overall--more exercise and more socializing with other dogs might help him be less neurotic at home. yay!

here are the halloween pictures. i promise.

so, after last night's technical difficulties, here is phase one of the halloween party pictures. woo!




here's supertoby getting all the ladies' attention. that's my boy!













L to R--Jump to Conclusions Mat (re: Office Space), Corpse Bride, and BlankMan

sadly, you can't see the corpse bride's husband behind chris.















Good Dorothy and Slutty Dorothy



















na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na, BATGIRL!
(i seriously hope that people know the batman theme. otherwise the na na's don't make any sense at all...)















UnderDog and Catwoman--you'd think we'd be mortal enemies, but we're both so cute that we can't help being buddies!
















Shaun of the Dead and UnderDog--what a great couple!


















look closely, and you'll be able to see the conclusions that you can jump to: ???, jump again, won't happen, could be, moot, yes!, it's a trap!, accept it, and go!














speaks for itself.

:)

running and halloween pix

i ran today after being slightly stressed out. it was good though. i did hickory-41st-beech-home and then came home. then i grabbed toby and we did our figure 8 loop in the park. it was nice, about 34 min total for me.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY!!! WE HAVE PICTURES FROM OUR HALLOWEEN PARTY!!! OOOOOOOO!!!!

and, the awesome part is this is only part one...

toby, the great american pee machine

i love my dog. i seriously do. but lately, thanks to the Prednisone prescribed for his itching, he has to pee. a lot. it's a good thing that for now i'm at home during the day and can let him out. but even then...

anyway, i took Toby the GAPM on another jog today, and we both really enjoyed it. i shortened it a little bit, just because the south end of the park is supremely boring, but we did the rest of the loop. i'm really very excited about toby because he's really pacing things very, very well and not taking off like a bat out of hell. this, plus the fact that we've been doing 15+ minutes each time, means that maybe eventually we can work up to 30 minutes or 5K. that won't be for a long while yet, but it'd be very fun to do a mom/dog race (but not run like it's a race) in the early spring. YAY TOBY! :)

today was good

well, that pretty much says. i'm still officially jobless, but i'm pretty proud of myself for not sitting on my butt all day. i cleaned a lot around the house, i cooked, i walked toby, i went for a run, i did laundry, and i made a costume. well, the costume was yesterday, but it still counts. anyway, kate made the comment the other day that me doing all the cleaning made her feel like she had a housewife. i don't mind that for now, but i think if i were an at-home lady all the time, i'd go insane. well, more than i already am now. :)

so the run was nice. i did an out & back along roland, and i felt really good. despite my better judgment, i did ~8 min. pace and got about 3.5 miles done. my legs didn't and don't bother me, although my knees are a little tweaky (but not bad though). i'm also pretty happy with myself because the weather wasn't so great today, but i still got out there. it was a little drizzly and cold, although shorts were fine. i just wore a tank under a long sleeve shirt and gloves and a ball cap. not bad at all. we'll see what the weather's like tomorrow--i hope it's a little nicer.

i think that's it for today, so look for me tomorrow... same bat time, same bat channel!!!

jog w/ toby

toby and i had a nice little jog today. we did that figure 8 in the park today, about twenty minutes, and my knees were a little anxious, since i hadn't run since the marathon. but, it was good to get out there. it was 53F out, and it didn't feel bad at all.

other than that, today was kind of boring. i did a lot of errands to get ready for the halloween party on friday. oh, and i have a job interview on thursday. woo! awesome.

here's another pic from the squash festival:


that's some random girl, me & kate. woo!

SQUASH FESTIVAL!!!

damn the squash put...

but anyway... :) i went to the hanley squash festival yesterday with kate, and it was so much fun! i have to say--john really knows how to throw a party. anyway, there were four events: 1) squash cuisine, 2) squash quaff, 3) squash put, and 4) squash art (squart).

1) there was only one true entry for the squash cuisine, and that was john's pumpkin soup. YUM!!! i was a little shy about it, but it was so good. it tasted like squash (which i happened to really like), and it was a little nutty. verdict: A

2) i did not participate in this event either, as i don't drink much at all. it was single elimination, but it still took forever. kate put in a valiant effort:


pre-quaff










extreme mental preparation









kate losing the quaff. she gave it her all though!!!
verdict: B

3) like i said, damn the squash put. i was expecting to destroy the competition--afterall, we WERE expected to use true shot put throwing form. unfortunately, i sucked. by the time we actually got to it, i was cranky and tired, and plus, we can't forget the fact that i was never actually good at shot put. that was why i was a javelin thrower. verdict: D

4) squash art, affectionately known as "squart," was my favorite event of the night. there were a lot of very good entries including the "squashed snowman," "rita," and "fish dinner." and they took 3rd, 2nd and 1st place, respectively. kate and i ended up entering as a pair, and i think we did a great job.

kate and i on the table

our family! clockwise, from top-left:

me, kate, tigress & toby

verdict: A++!!!

sidenote--i didn't think it was fair that i was the only one who WASN'T drinking and had a squash carving accident. i was good! why am i the one who has a hole in her palm? what the hell!!! verdict: F.

so, fun was had by all, and kate and i look beautiful in gourd-form. excellent.

measuring my life in 26.2 miles...

so now i think i can appropriately look back on the race and share it with everybody. a lot of these pix from the little disposable digital cam are pretty blurry (i wasn't going to stop just to have a kodak moment), but at least the most important things are still discernable. :) i'll do my best to explain everything.


me and mom at ohmygosh oclock (not really, just 7AM) in unitas plaza. it didn't feel all that early in the morning, but it still helps to have your mama around when you're going to do something this big!

val is a gal i met in Terprunners, and she's a veteran marathoner. she gave me priceless advice while i was training. yay val!

this is priceless. don't tell anybody i told you, but mom was a cheerleader for a short time in high school, so her inner rah-rah busted out while she was near me at the start line. THAT'S THE WAY WE SPELL ROW-DY!








here i am at the start. for some reason, i'm self-conscious...












a man after my own heart. :)











out of the gates!






this guy is 73 years old. this was his 20-something-ish marathon. so if you feel like you can't get off your ass and can't do anything, smack yourself silly and get out there. :)










i think this was my favorite space on the course. as pissed as i was that they took hampden out of it, this was a nice substitute. the water was glinting off of the harbor, and the sea breeze was so refreshing--i needed that so much at mile 10!!! anyway, i just like how this photo is semi-artistic, which is a feat, considering that i didn't stop running to take it. i just love how relaxed this scene is.





so mile 20 is where you hit the ubiquitous "wall." except i didn't. awesome.












this is mile 20 on hillen road, so named because of its bastard hill. like i said, i didn't bonk. i own hillen.










if you can't read the shirts, it's Focker (L) and I'm With Stupid (R). :) these were cool dudes. i eventually did bonk near mile 22, and these guys really helped me out. we ran together for about a mile and a half, and they were hilarious. awesome.








this is a pic for dad, since he couldn't make it down to see me. Look Dad! I Really Did Run!





the finish line is only a mile away... i'm getting closer!!!












it's a bit blurry, but the finish is just around the bend! 5 hours and 3 minutes after the start, i complete the biggest thing in my life!!!

so that's basically it. that's the visual reflection. maybe i'll be able to put words on it sooner or later. maybe not. but i'm so proud of this. that i'll be able to keep for a long time.

two scenes...

normally, i'm not a richard gere girl. in fact, i don't even think he's all that attractive. excuse me while i shield my face from the hoards of women out there who think i'm insane. but anyway, i'm sitting here with kate as "pretty woman" is about to end on TNT, and there are two things. first, there's this thing about how they have a rule--no kissing on the lips, because it's too personal. and then, one night, when he's asleep, she kisses him on the lips. he wakes up, but his eyes don't open, and he kisses her back. after all that they'd done before that, this was different. so very, very different. and then the second thing. this might seem like a standard movie ploy, but he defended her. i don't think that people give enough credit to that. sometimes, there are very scary moments, and to have a guy stand and do the right thing or say "i'm sorry" or just hold her, it may seem very little, but it is a rescue. and then, someday when he doesn't realize it, "she rescues him right back..."

first day after :)

i'm lying here watching the ravens own the browns. awesome. i am so tired. the exhaustion is hitting me more today than it did at all yesterday after the marathon--is that normal? i have no idea. i've also eaten So Much Food. right now, i'm still trying to process the experience, so just wait for a bit. when i get my little camera's pix developed, i'll put those on and then do a play-by-play (or mile-by-mile?) so it's easier to understand. in the mean time, here are the pix that i do have, courtesy of mama beatty. thanks, mom!



Holy Cow! it's 5:30AM!!! i'm beautiful. :)










some people are amazing. and then there are obnoxious people who feel like they have to be cool and juggle for 26.2 miles...











me finishing. i'd been running for about five hours at this point, so i look like hell. woo!











mom and me, after the race. i'm so glad that she got to come down. we missed dad, who was at home, recovering from surgery (get well, dad!). anyway, she was my go-to girl, being such great support before, during and after the marathon. she got right up next to the start crowd and saw me off, and she got right up next to the finish route and saw me come in. i love my mom!!







and this is chris. i wasn't sure i'd told him to leave home to get here in time to see me at mile 6, so i was a little down and thought... "oh... i'll just have to see him when i'm done..." and then, out of nowhere, i'm coming around at mile 13, and he's sitting right there on the corner! he found me!!! and then he was at the end, waiting for me at unitas plaza. afterward, after everybody else had gone home, he took good care of me, even through my aches and whines. :) every marathoner should be so lucky to have somebody so patient! thanks, chris!!!

last day!

okay, so i'm super excited now. i ran a little with toby this morning--a whole 20 minutes!!! he finally realized that he should trot instead of go off like a bat out of hell. it was fun because we stayed in wyman park and took it easy. and now, i'm hanging around in the living room with mom. i really should get stuff together... i'm not hyper like i was earlier... we'll see. i'm excited. :)

10 HOURS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!

dig

my baby got sauce...

anyway, today was a short, easy run. i went down to 34th, up hickory, along 41st, down beech, up 36th, down chestnut and home. barely even 18 minutes. eeeeeeeeeeeeasy. i just have to keep these clod-hoppers moving so that they remember what it's like to move on saturday. SATURDAY!!!

3 MORE DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!!!!

wow. saturday. i'll probably enter some zen-like state once i finish. my dad might not be able to come, since he's recovering from some out-patient surgery. :( that's sad. but i want dad to be resting and feeling better. i'll see him in november anyway, and we'll share all kinds of stuff then. but mom will be there, and that will be huge. i wonder what she's thinking about this. i'd love to do some kind of event with her, like a 5K walk or something. i've always had runs to share with dad, and i want something with mom too.

chris will there on saturday. he should be able to get a lot of grading done while waiting for me to finish. :)

right now, i'm trying to quantify this marathon. what does it mean to me? (you can tell that i've been teaching to the SAT too much--my questions sound like the damn essay prompts...) anyway, it's huge. i'm thinking about this past summer, how i moved up here, and it became one of the first things i put on my plate. i really didn't know what i was doing, and i didn't know anybody in the running community. i jumped back into church at 2nd Pres., and i was desperately seeking work. training for the marathon was a constant and really kept me going on some days. it made me be stronger on the days when i just wanted to cut out and cry. then there were the bumps. those breathing attacks really scared the shit out of me. did i have asthma? would everything i worked for get shut down so quickly? would i have a condition that would stick with me for the rest of my life? and then that fall on key highway--did i break anything? would i be able to recover in time? would the drugs mess me up? those things worked themselves out. i don't have asthma. i do have 3/4ths the lung capacity of the average woman my age and build, but dr. sam says that i'm very far ahead of the game, since i've been an athlete for so long. and i didn't break anything on that fall. instead i just bruised it, got messed up because of the drugs and then got un-messed. so i've recovered. i've beat those rough downs that would try to pull me under and keep me from doing anything productive.

so this marathon is... a testament? i think, once i have my body and mind back in one piece after the race, i'll see it as a history of my strength. it's so tempting to say that whatever we do is unremarkable because we don't want to sound conceited or anything, and we often self-efface to our detriment. so i think i'm going to have this be something that i'm extremely proud of, especially considering the hurdles i've cleared. i'll also have this be a jump-off point. i'm planning on doing the mardi-gras half marathon in New Orleans in February. then i'll probably focus on 5 and 10K's during the spring. i want to see how much faster i can get...

and off she goes!

lazy

i have decided that today will be a lazy day. there's nothing really going on, and i'll do some work that needs to be taken care of, and i don't have to run today, since i have the Big One on saturday.

while i'm thinking about it, here are two of the other girls from the worship team at 2nd pres.: julie just got married on saturday, and kim was able to go to the wedding. yay, julie!











5 MORE DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!

come see me run

and watch thousands of others be crazy by running 26.2 miles.

stand here:
http://www.thebaltimoremarathon.com/exec/baltimore/pdf/time%20line.pdf

:)

6 MORE DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!!!

palpable darkness

tom gave a sermon on clinical depression today, based on 1 Samuel 16:14-23. that was tough. hearing one's lifetime illness described in gritty detail can rip through the chest. and yet, i have to thank him for it. it's the first time i've heard depression discussed in church, raised as a theme and something that *needs* to be out in the open. and it does. mental illness is so often trivialized or, worse yet, not even acknowledged as valid or true or existent. it was hard also because we sang two pieces right after the sermon, and i had to keep it together before the congregation. i don't think i did that so well, but maybe that spoke to the congregation in some way. do you think they could tell that i was affected by the sermon? do you think they could then infer that this is a demon i contend with now and will contend with for the rest of my life? a thing i haven't mentioned--tom entitled his sermon "getting out of bed in the morning and other acts of courage" (italics mine). it took me a very long time to consider that kind of thing to be true. it is a brave thing to face the outside world when everything inside is so violent and yet somehow dead.

it's remarkable, really. there are such unquantifiable depths to the human spirit, and, queerly, they allows me to taste this nectarous grace that is so succulently healing. i don't know that many people able to know it in the way that i do. i struggle many times to believe in even the basic truths of God, and i grasp at straws and attempt to weave my own safety nets, granting myself pleasures that i think will slake my burning thirst for any sort of redemption. and so what is left me? those nets are but constructions that serve for a time but yet become old and brittle and eventually force me to admit the fragility of my being. and then my head is lifted, my lips are parted, and a sliver of water is slipped into my mouth. i am awakened and raised to my feet and given my own power to live. that is that grace for which i am so grateful. the Bible says that God has many names, too numerous to know, and that by which i name Him the most is the Lord, the Giver of Life.

that's all i know how to say.

very rainy day

7 DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!

nobody else wanted to run with me today, so i went to campus alone. i was going to run cherry hill alone, but the stream rushing next to it overflowed it banks, and after i started having to wade in water up to my knees, i decided to turn around. there's no need to run in something when i can't even see the bottom and risk getting hurt. so i came back on the trail. wanted to run over and do the lake loop. except when i got to the rt.1 bridge, the water was almost up to my thighs. so never mind. i figured that it was better to shorten the run than to be risky and run through rushing water where i can't see the ground. i didn't want to get hurt so close to the marathon. anyway, it ended up being ~35 min (3.75 miles) in absolutely pouring rain. i haven't run in sheets of rain like that in ages, and it feels so good. i then popped in to Noodles for some lunch. it was great, standing there with water streaming down my legs. lovely.


and check it out!!!













candelaria margot














mia, nici and clara















beatty brothers and their little sister :)

welcome, CMB!

excellent news!!! my niece has now joined our family! YAY!!! we welcomed candelaria margot beatty at 11:45PM, 5 Oct. 2005. as for her name, i think mia and geoff are aiming to honor each of their mothers, and we're going to call her clara. they win the award for most deliciously thought out baby names. wow.

anyway, i'm really very excited to meet little clara, and i'm also curious as to how manny and benicio are taking this Very Big Change in their lives. i think the boys will be fine. they'll be fine, that is, until i teach clara to be the most subversive little sister in history. ;)

oh, and 9 MORE DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!!

no running today. i'm quite tired, and i want to rest up for some fun nights ahead. october weekends are filling up really fast! marathon, squash festival and halloween! whoa! oh, and i'm putting all opponents on notice now: i WILL win the squash-put competition. :)

standard JHU loop

nice and easy, JHU loop, so it was ~3 miles. not bad at all. again, i have to be careful because on these short ones i tend to push it when i'm really supposed to be taking it easy. oh and guess what!

10 MORE DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!!!

i almost don't know what i'll do with myself afterward...


:)

short & sweet

nice. i love the taper runs. i just did a little over two miles around the neighborhood, and it was fun because i ran the length of hickory, a street i'd never run before. i did: elm to 34th to hickory to 40th to 41st to beech to 37th to chestnut and home. easy. woo! my calves were a little tighter than i expected, but overall i felt fine.

12 DAYS UNTIL THE MARATHON!!!!!!!!!! :)

running mess

so this is cool. i'm hella sore, but today was a good run. actually, thursday was extremely good, except i was dumb. so thursday, i decided to get in a good 5 miles--up elm, over 41st to roland to northern and then just back down roland. normally i take that pretty slowly, just to relax. but. i felt very good, so i just thought i'd take it. i ended up doing the 5 in 40 min, which is a match to my 5 mile race PR. que the hell? i was a little winded afterward, but not like i'd be after a race PR. excellent. the only thing is that that was a dumb thing to do so close to a long run. even though i stretched and everything, i was tight for this morning's 11. we met at this little podunk diner in an obscure corner of the city, and we did most of the half marathon course. DAMN HILLEN!!! but anyway. it only took about 1:55 to do it, so that was really good. that's about a 10:45 pace, and i'm very happy with that. it was a big help to have guilford be entirely downhill. after hillen. fuck hillen. i have run that road i don't know how many times in the past few months, and it's a bitch of an incline. even for me. and i cut my teeth on the ridges in PA. i hate hillen. i do know it's good for me though, since it'll be miles 20-21 in the marathon IN TWO WEEKS, so i'll know what to expect, mentally and physically. sort of.

two weeks. i can't wait. it's slowly settling in. this taper is really nice. and that 20 miler last week was a huge confidence boost. even though i ended up doing the majority of it by myself, i felt a lot better because of the large group that was there. so 20 last week, 11 today, 8-10 next saturday, and then THE MARATHON ON THE 15TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow. mom and dad will be there, i'll see some of the terprunners, my friends will be there along the course, and then there's the best-- chris is going to be there at the finish line. :) yay! i don't know if he realizes it, but that's a big deal to me. we've been dating for almost a month now (it's gone by so quickly!), and knowing that there's a big hug waiting for me at the end is a great boost (and incentive!).

i am preparing for the post-race let-down by scheduling a race afterward. i'm going to do the mardi gras half marathon in new orleans. i was thoroughly amazed that it's still going forward as planned, but it's going to be a great race--very emotional, i think. the people who organize it are taking all the funds from the race and giving them to the families of law enforcement lost in hurricane katrina. i'm still trying to imagine how they're going to handle everything logistically, but i really hope that it goes off well. it just seems like it needs to. this is when i feel really good to be part of a community that is so passionate and fanatical--we'll do whatever it takes, and we can accomplish a lot and raise a lot of money by doing what we love. this will be a great next step for me.

and chris is going to be at my finish line in two weeks. :)

short run

so i guess the terprunners' site is down indefinitely, so this is going to be my running log now. awesome. today was pretty easy, mostly because i was having a hard time getting my butt out of bed again. did a standard roland--cold spring--charles--BMA--remington--chestnut, for ~4.3 miles or so. didn't feel good/bad/awesome or anything like that. i'm just glad that i went out and did it. my psyche needed it...

twenty miles!

so wow. saturday was brutal but awesome. i jumped in on the marathon course run (thank you, Jim Adams & Falls Road Running!), and did the twenty mile course loop. holy (*!#&%^!!!!! i did it in about 11min. mile pace, for a grand total of 3:45. that'll put me on track for a ~4:45 marathon. woo! i can't believe i did it. unfortunately, even though there were about 200+ runners, i still ended up between clusters of runners and consequently did the last 15 miles on my own. dammit. i don't know how i keep doing that. i will say, however, that that is making me mentally tougher. hella tough. i made it. we started at patterson park at the butt crack o' dawn and the course went as follows:

linden (i think) to madison to washington to st. lo to harford to hillen to 33rd to guilford to 28th to st. paul/light to montgomery to hanover to fort to ft. mchenry to towson to marriot to hull to fort to lawrence (i missed woodall) to key to light to pratt to president to lancaster to caroline to aliceanna to boston to linden

http://www.thebaltimoremarathon.com/exec/baltimore/pdf/2005map.pdf

that's the new course loop, btw. i'm bitter that they took out the hampden loop. why the hell can't they finish falls road in time? instead, we're going through druid hill park like normal and then cutting over to st. paul and heading down. they've put in a loop inside ft. mchenry, which is kind of cool. i like running next to water. except for when there are cutting winds off the harbor, it's pretty relaxing. so anyway, i guess i'm pretty psyched, especially now that i know that i can do 20 miles without falling to pieces. and, val probably won't be able to come run with me, but i don't think i need that anymore. i did the 20 miles by myself on saturday, so since there will already be people around me, i know that i don't need somebody with me specifically. YAY!!! what makes this even better is that there will be people out there to support me. mom and dad are coming down. they're kind of like my pit crew, i think. and then kristie and steve said they'd be somewhere to cheer me on. and kate said that she'll walk toby to a part of the course, and they'd cheer for me. and, best of all, chris is going to be at the finish line. yay! :)

what the hell

i am so frustrated this week. every night since last thursday, i have had the worst time trying to get to sleep, and i have been waking up between 1 and 3AM and being awake for at least 2 hours. that blows! i really don't mean to be, but i can be kind of a bitch if i don't get all my sleep...

it's all chris's fault.

so what's going on right now? church on 9/11 was tough. the 9AM service was packed more than usual, and everything went faster. tom skipped the sermon, and instead we did responsive prayers that were adapted for both 9/11 and hurricane katrina. see, i remember exactly where i was that morning four years ago. i was asleep when the phone rang, and i did everything i possibly could to roll over in bed and ignore it, but it just kept ringing and ringing. so i pick up, and derek is vehemently insisting that i turn on the news. i do, and there's the horrible footage of the first plane hitting the WTC. and then, as the cameras were trained on the scene, i saw the 2nd plane hit. i just kept saying "oh my God, oh my God..." it got worse as they showed people hanging out of windows and some jumping to their deaths. and then the towers collapsed. i saw it all. i can't imagine even being there--it must have frantically traumatic and horrifying. and then they didn't show how the third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and nobody really knew right away about the fourth one that crashed in Pennsylvania. then, in 2002, i was in NYC and went to the WTC site. it was this huge gaping hole. thousands of people had died, and nothing was left, except for the steel beams that had fallen and formed a cross. i still choke up when i think about that. God, how can that happen here? we seem to think that we're above it all, that we're invincible, that we rightfully dominate the world. but we're not. and our heart is cut out in the process.

okay, so i didn't think i was going to get this serious. it was interesting last summer, when i gave a paper at a conference in Leeds. i was comparing the rhetoric of George Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress to an article written by Don DeLillo. three years after, my international audience could not understand why my entire country was devastated, when the horror occurred in only two cities and in a rural field. and this summer, practically exactly a year after that conference, london exploded. it made me wonder how my British listeners were doing and if and how they were changed. now i think there's a more global awareness of civic vulnerability. so what are we going to do about it?

here. you need to read this--> http://www.jwp4.netfirms.com/delillo.html

FRIENDS!!! :)

this is ATV Courtney. she's dangerous. we met ? years ago, both working at *)!&^%!-ing Cambridge in Columbia, and i'm so excited that we're friends. for the first 6-ish months of our friendship, our lives were weirdly parallel w/ family and relationship stuff, and we helped each other through some really tough times. if i could pick a sister, she'd be one!


this is steve. boflex. don't ask. anyway, he's another weird person, mostly because if i hadn't moved to PA while i was in elementary school, i would have ended up going to high school with him. strange thing, huh? when we met our freshman year at UMBC, we found out that his best friend had been my best friend in third grade. luckily, he and i have OTHER things in common. really though, he's one of my best friends, and he's one person who is very honest with me. a stand-up guy.


this is kate and dom. kate is my housemate, and dom is one of her best friends and becoming a fast friend of mine too. finding kate on craigslist was the luckiest thing--we really clicked, and now we have the most fun. and she loves toby, which is very important. :) dom is a great guy, and in the first week that we knew each other, we got to be good buddies. he, like steve, is very frank, and he's really good at giving a shoulder to lean on. yay dom!



these are some of the terprunners. unfortunately, i don't know the girl in the pink top. but otherwise, it's (top row) pat, liz, alvin, erik, val, jen & nick, and (bottom row) lauren, tom & samy. when i first came out to the club, i really felt like the old lady because all of these guys are undergrads, but when we got out on our runs, it totally didn't matter, and i ended up being good friends with val and samy. with their support, i was able to rediscover my love of running, and val is absolutely so helpful with my marathon training. fantastic!

"Sssh!" by Fleming & John

anybody who hasn't heard them needs to hear them. she's awesome, and her husband is amazing on guitar. cool.

so this week was a bitch & a half. it's weird. i have bipolar disorder, i know that i always survive, and i know the ways to cope when i have a bad episode, but all of that is meaningless when something comes up and rides me. and i have no idea what i'm supposed to do or what it means, and i always spiral back to where i started. i'm not sure what progress i make in life sometimes.

on a happier note, here's a fantastic Korean idiom passed along by matt-a-tat: "The dog covered with excrement laughs at the dog covered in chaff." - The pot calling the kettle black. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

i've given up on jose saramago for the time being. i loved blindness, but history of the siege of lisbon is too hard. even for me. ugh. that sounds irredeemably conceited, but seriously. i battled with saramago's passion for metaliterature, and i just can't hack it. i'm just not po-co enough. and i guess i never will be. i'm trying to figure out what i should read next. i have machiavelli sitting on my shelf, right next to plato, and i also have some middle english arthurian legend. i don't think i have anything *new* up there. i'm such a bad example--there are so many books in the "canon" that i haven't read, but i hate a lot of those authors. twain? ick. don't get me started on twain. maybe if i put the stupid laptop down once in awhile, i'd get into some of these books...

overdue update

pics that should have been on here from the start:

this is toby dog, trying to drive my parents' van.



me & nici. :)