Dear John: A Love Letter (Or Why I Don’t Write Love Letters)

Dear John, – no, sounds like we’re breaking up

Dearest John – how many of them are there?  Besides 8?

Dear John who I love more than anything in the world,

I love you more than anything in the world. Oh, please.  Start over.

Dear John,

I love you.  I love that you make me laugh.  I love that I make you laugh.  I love how delighted you look when you make me laugh.  I love your principles and how you stick to them.  I love how when you’re excited about something, you fill up the room.  I love that you’re a better cook than me, and when you decide to make something, you throw yourself into it and make it from scratch (and make it better than I could have made it).  You throw yourself into everything you do.  I love that you have more hobbies than you can count and that you always have a pile of books you’re in the middle of reading.  I love that you don’t think there’s such a thing as owning too many books, that you pushed us to get those pictures hung, and that you hold my hand every night as we fall asleep.  I’ve loved you for 14 years and I’ll love you for 140 more.  (Keep an eye out for that deadline in 2152, though.)

Happy Valentine’s Day and every other day.

I love you,

Zannah

Get it together, card industry

Cards have always tended towards dumb.  If you go to the card section in any drugstore, grocery store, big box store, or card store and pick a card at random, it will be either schmaltzy or cheesy.  A very very teeny tiny eensy weensy small percentage of cards are amusing, and an even smaller amount are actually funny.  And I know this makes me sound old (Get off my lawn, you crazy kids!), but I really think cards used to be funnier.  Or at least less dumb.  I feel like I had a better chance at finding one 15-20 years ago that I would actually give to someone than I do now.  Maybe my sense of humor has changed, but I don’t think that’s it.  (I share my sense of humor with my 6-year-old niece, so I’m fairly certain it’s not me who changed.)  The bottom line is that I don’t buy cards that often anymore.  I don’t even send e-cards as often anymore.  And it’s a little sad.  I used to send cards just for fun.  Because they were funny.  Sending funny emails is not even remotely the same thing.

Funny.  Funny.  What a weird-looking word.  Funny.

Obviously, since it’s Valentine’s Day, I was thinking about Valentine’s Day cards in particular, and how I didn’t buy any (except the one for Gaby’s class, and it didn’t even say Happy Valentine’s Day.  It said Happy Heart Day.  When did that become a thing?  It doesn’t even make sense.  At least say Happy Happy-Heart Day.  Every day would be Happy Heart Day because everyone has a heart, in whatever condition.  You might be wishing someone a Happy Broken-Heart Day.  I need to get out of parentheses.) because they were dumb.  John and I don’t usually do much for Valentine’s Day anyway (takeout and a bottle of champagne tonight), but it’s the principle of the thing, Hallmark.  And whoever else makes cards.  Be amusing or you’ll go out of business.

Ideas wanted

This (from Catalog Living) is almost as hilarious as the llama picture.

A couple of weeks ago, John and I hung a shelf above the couch in the family room.  Now I don’t know what to put on it.  The studs aren’t spaced right, so we reinforced the bottom, but I still don’t think it’s sturdy enough to pack it full of books.   We were going to hang a second one above the TV, but we’ll have the same weight distribution problem.  So what do we do?

It looks a little ridiculous empty, but I’m afraid it’ll come crashing down if we put anything heavy on it.

Am I right or am I right?

I’ve read in lots of places (I can’t name a single one, but at this point, it’s probably in the public consciousness so I don’t have to) that to be successful at losing weight (or at anything), it helps to set up little rewards at certain milestones.  I found my first little reward.  But I can’t have it yet.  I had the afternoon off work today (left early to take my data modeling exam (got an A), and had a couple of hours left over), so what did I do?  I went to the mall.  Horror of horrors.  I wasn’t in a shopping mood, but John needs new brown work shoes and he has enormous feet so no one ever has his size in stock.  I went to Nordstrom because I know they’ll order or transfer shoes from other stores so he can try them on before buying.  Nice people there.  And while I was at the mall, I decided to shop for skinny jeans.  Not because I’m particularly skinny, but because it’s time.  Sadly, I’m between sizes.  So my reward for losing the next few pounds will be a pair of skinny jeans.  Mostly so I can wear my boots over them.  My shopping mood didn’t last long (it never does), and I escaped from the mall before it could ruin my day.  Malls have a way of doing that.

Musing on nothing in particular

  • John caught Riley drinking my coffee this morning.  Later, he (Riley, not John) knocked the trash can down the basement steps and possibly ate some of the coffee grounds that spilled out.  Is my dog a caffeine junkie?  How did this happen?  How did I not notice?  It would certainly explain the high-strung behavior…
  • John made a pot roast (roast beef?  Is there a difference?  I don’t really care – delicious either way) for dinner tonight.  The house smells fantastic – like red wine and onions.  Warm red wine and onions.
  • I got a 96% on my fourth homework assignment in my data modeling class.  I was debating whether or not to argue with the professor because I think (and John agrees) that she’s wrong about that one answer.  I decided not to.  I got a 96%.  Arguing for a 100% isn’t necessary.  I’m letting it go.
  • I’m drinking white wine instead of red even though we’re having pot roast (or roast beef) for dinner tonight.  Ask me if I care.  (Hint: I don’t.)

I love three-day weekends

I was looking over my list for the weekend and I realized I left off something important.

  1. Do my homework (I have an assignment due for Data Modeling and Design)
  2. Finish Faithful Place
  3. Start The Hunger Games
  4. Exercise
  5. Grocery store
  6. Blah blah other boring things
  7. Oh, also SLEEP
  8. Aren’t I forgetting something? Oh, yeah.

  9. GET MY NAILS DONE

How could I forget about that?  Something of such global importance?  Silly me.  I also don’t remember what the other boring things were (#6), so I’m considering them done.  But look how productive I was!  Homework, reading, and sleeping.  Good for me.  And the gym.  Better for me.  Poor John is still miserable (and he has to go to work today – poor John, indeed).  He spent most of the weekend resting.

I am going to finish The Hunger Games before I tackle the rest of my busy day.  OR…I could go to the store now and get my one chore out of the way early…  Decisions, decisions.

Watch out for falling cliches

Happy New Year!  It’s a brand new year, not too cold (I’m convinced we’re going to be paying for this in February), sunny and shiny and fresh, and I have the cliché-est of all resolution clichés: I want to lose weight.  Eat right.  Be healthy.  Find the exercise routine I lost a couple of months ago.  I’m reluctant to even call it a resolution.  It’s a thing that is always true and that I’m always making some effort to do.  How much of an effort is what varies.  Let’s just say I’ll start paying attention again.  Making better choices.  I also think I want to be a database administrator.  Maybe.  I’m still trying to find out what it would take.

Something almost unheard of happened last night.  Or didn’t happen, actually.  I didn’t knock over any champagne glasses.  !  You’re shocked, I can tell.  No one knocked anything over, as far as I know.  Jess had a close call, but she saved it with her catlike reflexes.  A little champagne dripped here and there while it was being poured, but that doesn’t count.

John and I have done very little today, and it has been wonderful.  The best thing about right now, right this very second, is that there’s no work tomorrow.

The best thing about last night is that there were too many good things to pick one.  I LOVE having our friends at the house, New Year’s Eve or any eve.  Thanks for coming, guys!  Man, we should have taken pictures.

We go to eleven

11 years ago, we made everyone fly to Kentucky in the snow (I think there was snow – I could be wrong) to watch us get married and then get hammered.  (Sounds like we were the only ones who got hammered.  Far from it, my friends.)

Happy anniversary to us!

Baby, it’s not that cold outside

It’s not cold enough.  I should be happy about that (I hate being cold), but it’s hard to feel Christmas-y (or Hanukkah-y – yes, I’ve been lighting candles this year.  Please pick your jaw up off the floor.  That’s not sanitary.) when you barely need a coat to go outside.  I’ll get over it.  Just as soon as we hit the road.  Which can’t be soon enough for me.  What I’m really looking forward to is the time off.  I need a long, long break.  Or maybe…yeah, we don’t talk about that on the internet.

I also didn’t mean to publish that yet.  The Publish button looked a lot like the Save Draft button just then.  Whoops.  (For those of you coming late to the party, first of all, shame on you.  Get it together and be on time.  Secondly, it’s kind of obvious what just happened, so this explanation is unnecessary.)

I regret my choice of post title now.  Not just because it’s dumb, although that should be enough.  No, I regret it because that song is stuck in my head now.  I like it fine, but I’ve been having this problem all day, and I can’t settle on a song I’d be happy to have looping through my brain all day.  I woke up this morning to the theme from The Price is Right (thanks to the episode of How I Met Your Mother we watched last night), but I started to tell John about it and immediately switched to “You Were On My Mind” by We Five.  (John, you were right.  It’s We Five.)  Maybe I can get that one back.  I’ve always liked that song. Wish me luck!

Nice things

Nice thing #1: Manicures.  I had one the other day.  Tuesday.  I feel much better now that my nails aren’t in danger of tearing/breaking or hurting someone (myself included).  Also, they’re pretty.  And neat.  Toes are next on the agenda (maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday).  I didn’t have time to do both on Tuesday.

Nice thing #2: Yoga.  I like it.  I’m all relaxed.  Hungry, but that’s what strawberries are for.  My yoga instructor says we shouldn’t drink anything for 15-20 minutes after we’re done because our bodies are detoxifying.  I’m not exactly sure what it means, but I’m always really thirsty when class is over.  Waiting 20 minutes is like torture.  But I was talking about nice things.  Like strawberries.

Nice thing #3: Strawberries.  I bought some when I went shopping on Friday, and oh crap.  It’s been almost a week.  I hope they’re still good.  If they are, that’s dessert.  Dinner was nice thing #4.

Nice thing#4: Whole grain English muffins with cream cheese and strawberry  jam.  Why whole grain?  (That’s what John wants to know.  Why would I ruin a perfectly good idea by buying whole grain English muffins?)  Because that’s what I saw when I was at the store.  I have no ulterior motive.  It’s nice that they’re better for me and they taste essentially the same (especially when covered with cream cheese and strawberry jam), so why fight it?

Okay, people, you can relax now.  The strawberries are fine.  I’m going to eat them.  Right now.  Good night.

Death by brisket or barking pug – your choice

We have had an eventful couple of days.  I tried to poison us, and then we got attacked by a pug.  Not on the same day, thank the whatever from high atop the thing (because I am a DORK), because I don’t know if I could have handled that.

First things first: I made brisket for dinner on Sunday.  It cooked all day long, smelled fantastic.  Last time I made it, I didn’t cook it quite long enough, so I added time this weekend.  I kept an eye on it, added water, and kept it tightly covered, but I guess I didn’t add enough water at the end.  Maybe.  I’m not sure, but the bottom was not edible.  Very tough.  The rest of it tasted fine, so we ate it anyway and put away the leftovers.  Within a couple of hours, by bedtime, I was not feeling so hot.  Like so not good that I was contemplating sleeping on the floor next to the toilet.  The smell of the brisket was SO strong we had to open the windows, and when I did crawl back into bed (bathroom trashcan nearby), I tried to sleep sitting up, knees up, head tilted forward and toward the fresh air coming in from outside.  I didn’t have a good night.  By about 3am, John wasn’t having a good night either.  Neither of us could sleep facing the hallway (even after John closed the door) because the overpower smell of brisket was nauseating to us both.  That’s a tragedy.  Brisket is one of the best smells in the world.  We were a little woozy the next morning, but we got over it.  John even made a brisket sandwich out of the leftovers for lunch today.  He’s braver than me.  We’ll see how he feels tonight.

This morning, after a light dinner last night and a normal night’s sleep (I’m feeling much better, thank you), I took the dogs for a jog around the neighborhood.  We turned down this one street, and every dog on the block started barking at us.  Making a HUGE racket.  Roxy and Riley were really good, though.  They stayed on the sidewalk with me, didn’t bark, didn’t lunge.  About halfway down the block, a woman across the street from us was admonishing her barking ankle-biters and eventually scooped one of them into her arms.  We got past them, but all that little-dog barking was getting louder and louder…I looked back and I saw a pug charging across the street toward us.  I grabbed Riley’s collar to keep the crazy down, and the pug stopped short right in front of Roxy, who didn’t even flinch.  That pug was inches from her face, barking his head off, and Roxy stood her ground and looked at him, head cocked to one side like she was confused.  Maybe she intimidated him (’cause Roxy’s SO scary).  He ran back home a few seconds later.

For those of you who were wondering, John feels fine.  Maybe it wasn’t the brisket.

Know what I mean, Vern?

You know that feeling when you’ve promised someone you’ll do something and then the time comes and you REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t want to do it?  But you still have to?  I hate that feeling.  And I don’t want to do it.  But I will.

I did, and it was fine.

You know what I love?  Three-day weekends.  I LOVE three-day weekends.  Even when they’re full of stuff to do (calculus quiz) and errands to run (too many to count), that extra day gives me SO much time.  I don’t feel rushed.  I love that.  All weekends should be three days long.

You know what else is fun?  Updating your Amazon wish list.  It’s like following all those links and getting lost in Wikipedia, except you’re finding stuff you want to buy.

And you know what ELSE?  A cooking brisket is one of the best smells in the world.  And there’s only about half an hour left before we can eat.  I’m not sure John is going to last that long.

At least I got an extra hour out of it

How does a whole Saturday, no, a whole weekend disappear like that?  It had productive moments, but mostly – I need a do-over.

On the non-productive front, we started two new shows over breakfast.  Grimm looks like it could be really good.  The other show, Once Upon a Time, looks interesting, but maybe not quite as good as Grimm.  I still want to watch it.

One of the things we didn’t do was buy a new flower pot to plant the remaining avocado sprout.  John said flower pot to me and all I could think of was this:

It starts a little late, but I can’t find the beginning of the scene on YouTube. Close enough.

Avoiding an egging

We weren’t particularly in the mood for Halloween this year.  John picked up some candy yesterday, but we didn’t decorate, we didn’t look for costumes for ourselves, and as of this morning, we’d decided to pretend we weren’t home.  I had visions of us leaving all the downstairs lights off and hiding in our room with dinner, the dogs, and the Roku, blinds closed.  I would have put a bowl of candy on the front porch, but that would have been it.  Then John got home and decided we weren’t going to be those neighbors.  Instead, the lights are on, the doorbell is ringing, the dogs are going nuts (Riley LOVES Halloween – he’s so excited he gets to say hi to all the little kids), and we’re holding dinner until the rush is over.  But the kids are cute.  This one little boy was pretty clearly dressed as Thor, so I asked the idiot question: “Are you Thor?”  “NO.  I’m FIVE.”  I stopped asking.  Another little girl ran back to her parents yelling, “I petted the doggie!”  That’s SO much better than candy.

Wildlife sighting! Hearing, really, but who’s ever heard of a wildlife hearing?

The other night, John and I got up at 2am to let Riley out.  (Riley has been having intestinal difficulties, and we were trying to avoid waking up to another gigantic mess.)  I stepped out onto the deck to shoo him into the yard, and I heard hooting.  Like actual owl-type hooting.  The kind I’ve only ever heard exaggerated in scary nighttime scenes in Disney movies.  And those are always set deep in the woods or on farms or something.  I certainly didn’t expect to hear it in our treeless suburban neighborhood.  And then I heard a second one.  TWO OWLS.  In my backyard.  At 2 in the morning.  May I never hear that again (if only because I prefer not to be up at 2 in the morning).

Hey, I managed to embarrass myself on Twitter this morning.  On the plus side, John Scalzi replied to my tweet.  On the minus side, I came off looking like an idiot.

And on top of that, I look like a nerd trying to impress someone with a big word.  In my defense, I ran out of characters when I tried to say “irrelevant to the discussion” instead.  I was being concise.

I’m going to hide now.

Update: To make the whole Twitter thing worse, I was just catching up on my blog reading, went to Whatever, and found that the article was apparently in yesterday’s Washington Post and John Scalzi posted it on his own blog then.  So now I’m an idiot who clearly doesn’t keep up with his blog.  Just great.

It’s really quite an accomplishment for me

I made breakfast!  Like, real breakfast.  On a WEEKDAY.  Because this particular weekday happens to be John’s birthday, and he happens to love breakfast sandwiches.  I made him two bacon, egg, and cheese croissant-wiches.  And coffee.  Because I’m cool like that.  And also because it’s his birthday.  More because it’s his birthday.

Happy Birthday, John!

Who’s excited?

I am, I am!  Tomorrow is Les Mis.  YAY!  Tonight, I pick Sparky up from the airport.  Yay!  Also, it’s Friday (yay!) so PRESUMABLY, I can sleep in a bit tomorrow.  Got up before 5 this morning, people.  (John is not pleased.  I tried REALLY hard to have everything I needed in the guest room so I wouldn’t wake him while I got ready, but I needed one little thing and, of course, I needed it 15 minutes before his alarm was going to go off.  Sorry, John.)  We’re having a kick-off meeting this morning, and I was in charge of bringing bagels, and traffic has been HORRIBLE this week, so I figured I’d just get out the door earlier.  Guess what?  I over-corrected.  I was up the elevator and in my little conference room by 7:20.  Just a little bit earlier than necessary.  A tad.  Still, it’s better than the alternative.

Can someone please get Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” out of my head?  I don’t like it.  I keep trying to force it out, but it creeps its way back in every time I think I’ve won.  Stupid little whistling part.

I am a runner

I did it.  I ran the Army Ten-Miler, and I did it 13 minutes faster than any of my workouts.  And it hurt like hell.  The day was just shy of perfect.  The temperatures were low and it wasn’t raining, but the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  A cloudy day would have kept us cooler AND probably not given me a sunburn.  (I wore sunblock.  On my face.  I didn’t consider the back of my neck ’cause it’s usually covered with hair.)  And speaking of hair, I had no hair disasters!  Yay!  Over the last few weeks, my braids have come out of the bun repeatedly, come loose altogether (the bottom hair bands lost forever) twice, and generally behaved like Houdini getting out of a straitjacket.  This morning, though, my braid felt secure in its bun and it didn’t even jiggle.  It came down when I took it down, approximately 8 hours after I put it up.  Good bun.  Good braid.  Good me!  Practice works!  (I’ve been wearing my hair in a braid at every opportunity lately.)

So John and I got up at 5:15 yesterday morning, took care of the dogs, ate some toast, and headed to the Pentagon.  We’d been debating the metro vs parking issue for weeks, but when I heard that there’s only bus service between two of the stations on the line nearest us and we’d have to drive most of the way in just to find a station with uninterrupted service to the Pentagon, I convinced John that parking at Pentagon City would be easier.  Less stressful.  He wasn’t hard to convince.  We got to the parking garage right at 7, just as planned, and joined the mobs of runners trying to get to the port-a-potties near the starting line.  30,000-ish runners = long lines for the bathroom.  EVERYone has to go.  Almost everyone.  I’ll come back to that.

John and I were in different starting waves, so we split up to wait in our own personal crowds.  Eventually (couldn’t tell you if the race started on time, but I can tell you we waited and waited and waited and waited….), my crowd started shuffling towards the start we couldn’t see.  We must have been half a mile away, and we were packed in.  A guy behind me started mooing.  He switched to baaing when we stopped laughing at the moos.

John ran this race 5 years ago with a goal of finishing in 1 hour, 40 minutes (10 10-minute miles).  He said people were packed so close in at the beginning that his first mile took him 13 minutes or something crazy like that.  He made up the time later on and finished EXACTLY when he’d planned.  Magic.  I wasn’t counting on magic, so the possibility of a really slow first mile was pretty scary to me.  Luckily, my pack spread out pretty quickly once we finally got across the starting line, so it wasn’t really an issue.  The main race clock (and the timers at the mile markers) were set to the actual race start (which was about 20 minutes before I started), so I relied on my own watch to track my time, starting the timer as I passed under the yellow and black balloons.  (The Army needs to get better colors – yellow (or gold – whatever) and black make for some seriously ugly balloons.) Once I got past the first mile and realized I wasn’t going to have any crowd-related pacing problems, I let go of the what-if-I-don’t-make-it-through-five-miles-fast-enough-and-they-don’t-let-me-finish anxiety and concentrated on moving.  On concentrating.  On keeping my legs churning and my feet landing mid-foot or further forward (my right heel was giving me some trouble).  And then I got the 3-mile mark and found I was averaging well under 11-minute miles.  And then I got to five miles and saw that my average pace was 10:12.  Too fast!  So I slowed down for the last five miles, knowing I was going to be paying for the faster start later.

I did.  I still am.  But it’s a good hurt.  I worked hard for this hurt.  But I’d like it to stop now.  The second half of the race is a blur of bright sunshine and cowbell.  (LOTS of spectators had cowbells.)  I remember thinking the 14th Street Bridge would never end.  And I remember wondering whose bright idea it was to put three (four?) hills in the last two miles.  And then I saw Amanda and Greg and Alex near the finish (thanks for cheering me on, guys!) and then I could see the finish and then I smiled and then it was over.  And then we (John was waiting for me) came to almost a complete halt in a sea of people all struggling to get water (John had some for me because he’s wonderful.  And fast.) and get out and sit down.  For a while it hurt more to be standing still than it had when I was still running.  And we were like a mile from the car.  So we got our bananas and muffins and water and trudged all the way back to the mall parking garage.  When we finally got home (after a ridiculous search for a breakfast place – we at Anthony’s in Falls Church.  French toast!  Exactly right.), we put aside all plans to actually get much thesis and calculus work done, showered, and collapsed on the couch for some well-deserved TV.

It was fun.  No – it was painful and I was afraid it would never end.  But I would do it again.  I don’t want it to be so hard.  If I keep doing it, it’ll get easier.  If I keep repeating that, it might come true.

Moment of truth.  I’m going to check the official results.  Before I do, did I tell you that John finished a full 10 minutes faster than the last time he ran this race?  Because he’s cool.

Okay – my official time was 1:48:47.  (Only one second off what my watch said.  Look at me!  I know how to work a stopwatch!)  I beat my 2-hour expectations by a substantial margin and only missed John’s first time by just under 9 minutes.  Maybe next time.  🙂

Now I’m going to take more ibuprofen and go back to bed.  Lots more ibuprofen.

Right, I said I’d come back to the bathroom thing (many moons and paragraphs ago).  Yeah, the race had only barely started when, by the dozens, guys started hopping the guardrail on Route 110 and sprinting for the treeline to pee.  It was hilarious and a little disconcerting.  Was it planned?  Is that the best place?  Did they pass the word around?  Are these the guys who didn’t want to wait in the long port-a-potty lines?  Or just the ones who drank another liter of water while waiting for the race to start?  I mean, I have to go practically once an hour, more when I’m drinking lots of water, and yet I managed to plan ahead so that my last chance before the race started was enough to get me all the way home, almost six hours later.  Which, now that I think about it, pretty much means I was dehydrated.  Or a crazy-efficient sweater.  Sweat-er.  One who sweats.  Not the cable-knit kind.

That’s enough.  Go to bed already.