John

One subject only – it’s called preoccupation

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John and I drove back into DC today to pick up our race packets for tomorrow’s race.  (The Army Ten-Miler is tomorrow, by the way.  Have I mentioned that?  Talked about it much?  Nah, certainly not on those days I actually ran 10 miles.  This is probably coming as a complete surprise to you guys.  Because you know how much I don’t like to talk about what’s going on with me.)  For some reason (to do with costs, I’m sure), they refuse to mail the packets out ahead of time (seriously, just charge us all an extra few bucks and mail them the week before – we’re paying a ton to register anyway), so everyone has to come into town on the Friday or Saturday before the race to check in and pick them up.  It’s where we get our race bibs (and activate them) and our t-shirts, and it gives a ton of vendors the opportunity to sell lots of over-priced stuff (marked on sale, but not really) to over-excited runners.  This year (maybe every year, but it’s my first year, so what do I know?), packet pick-up was at the DC Armory.  Not an easy place to get to, unless you’re going by metro, but unless you live near the metro already or are staying in a hotel for the weekend, you’re probably not going by metro.  Actually, it’s not that hard to get to, but for once in my life, I didn’t look at a map first.  I relied on my phone’s Google navigation with GPS.  So we went the long way around.  Through not-great neighborhoods.  Listening to my phone telling us to make impossible left turns and then re-route us through worse areas to correct the mistake I made of not turning left onto a road with three lanes of traffic that didn’t go in that direction.  Silly me.  Our way back out was MUCH easier and is how we should have gotten there in the first place.  Thankfully, the race itself does not start at the DC Armory and does not require us to go anywhere near it, either by car or on foot.

If you’re local and you want to go into DC early tomorrow morning (it’s going to be a BEAUTIFUL day) and cheer on a shitload of runners while enjoying the monuments, well, that would be cool.  🙂  The course map is on the website (linked above) so you can find a good place to watch (there are restrictions on what you can bring to the finish area, but you don’t have to watch from there – anywhere along the mall on the Independence side would be a good spot) if you’re coming.  I’ll be wearing blue shorts and a navy blue tank top if you want to keep an eye out.  Purple race bib.  I expect it to take me about two hours (because I am SLOW) and I’m in the third wave (starts at 8:15), so calculate accordingly if you’re looking for me at a certain mile-marker.  I’m hoping adrenaline will help my pace, but I mostly just care about not getting directed straight to the finish line (and being unable to finish the race) if I don’t make it to the 5-mile mark by 9:35.  I say I’m worried about that, but I’ve done it enough times now that I’m about as certain as I can be that I’ll beat that particular deadline by at least 20 minutes.  The five miles after that will be the hard ones.

With that, I’m going to try not to think too hard about it anymore tonight.  John and I are going to pick up dinner (spaghetti) and settle in and watch Chariots of Fire and go to bed early.  Tomorrow morning is going to arrive WAY earlier than usual.

Socializing

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John and I have lived in this house for almost six years.  We know the people in three houses around us by name, and of those three, we only know the last names of the people immediately next door.  We say hi on the sidewalk, help them shovel snow, and occasionally chat with the kids.  Six years.  Pathetic and anti-social, that’s us.  In our defense, everyone in this neighborhood has kids (except us, of course), so they all know each other from school and play groups and the bus stop.  Paper-thin, I know.  We haven’t made an effort, and honestly, we haven’t minded all that much.  I’ve met a few more people who live nearby since I joined the gym six months ago, but that hasn’t lead to real relationships.  Until now, possibly.  Maybe.  Friday afternoon, a woman I know from the gym called to invite me to play bunco with her club that night.  They need 12 people, and two of their regulars couldn’t make it.  “Is it a problem that I don’t know what bunco is?”  “Not in the least.  Bring $10.”  Yeah, that doesn’t sound shady at all. Come play a game you’ve barely heard of.  We’ll take your money.  She said it’s easy and mindless, and the club is really just an excuse to for the members to eat, drink, chat, and maybe win a few dollars.  I went.  She wasn’t lying – all you have to do is count, and the rest of pure chance.  I can do that.  And with only $10 at stake, it’s no big deal if I lose.  Which I did not do.  There are twelve rounds (six winners in each round), and I won the most rounds, so I took home $40.  Not a bad way to be introduced to a game.  I’m certain it’ll never happen again.  (This is how it starts.)  I played, I met 10 new people, it was enjoyable enough, and John and I were invited to a block party the next day.  That was a bit more awkward than bunco night, but shortly after we sat down at a picnic table with our food, a couple came over, said “Oh, good – faces we recognize!”, and sat down.  They’re the neighbors across the street and over one house, the ones with the very friendly cat and five kids (mostly grown, all living at home).  Now we know their first names (but not their last name – what is wrong with us?).  Had a good time chatting with them for over an hour.  So, yay.  Neighbors.

There was a spider in my car today.  It was crawling across the roof (upside down, on the inside of the sunroof), and I know this because I was watching it when I should have been watching the road.  Spiders are not allowed in my car!  Maybe I need to put up a sign.  Maybe our new neighbor friends are exterminators.  Except they’re not.  Every single person we met was either a teacher or a government contractor.  Not that those are bad things to be, but they don’t help me much when I’m trying to keep a crazed and bloodthirsty spider at bay while making a left turn.  Inconsiderate of them, to say the least.

I can have a do-over, right?

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I had a strange day.  Got so frustrated with work I was nearly in tears.  Got over it because there’s a lot of funny stuff on the internet.  I know, right?

My favorite tweet today:

My favorite reddit…thing today (it’s actually from yesterday, but it kept me amused today, too):

Must go.  If I stay here any longer, I’ll eat the entire container of rice pudding.  (John’s brilliant idea – who gets a craving for rice pudding, of all things?  So good.)  Anyway, I’d like to pretend today’s odd day never happened, so I’m going to take my book and go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.

I need to watch it again. And again.

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Had a very busy weekend, but not a very productive one.  Feeling a little guilty about that.  But not overmuch (that’s for tomorrow, when panic sets in) because I just watched three hours of Doctor Who with John, and while all three episodes were fantastic, the first one we watched today (season 3’s “Blink”) was the absolute best hour of TV I have EVER SEEN.  It was a GREAT episode, totally stands alone but still captures the Doctor, and on top of that, was effectively and freakishly scary.  Creepy.  SO well done.  Lots of caps.  Sorry.  I feel very strongly about that episode.  Greg, I think this is one of the ones you mentioned – anything you needed to tell us?

We stopped after Part II of the next three-parter, but we’ll probably watch Part III before we go to bed.  I don’t know how I managed before Doctor Who.

As for the rest of the weekend, remind me to tell you about bunco, Oktoberfest, a TON of neighbors I’ve never met before (despite living here for almost 6 years), and running just under 9 miles in the rain.  No need to remind me to tell you about that last bit, actually.  That’s all there is to say about it.  Oh, except I RAN THE WHOLE THING, including that hill I hate.  But that’s all.  🙂

I want to keep babbling, mostly about Doctor Who and some about The Guild (we’ll start watching the current season soon – finished season 4 yesterday), but since what I’m hearing in my head is not remotely coherent (a lot of squeeing and why don’t we own that? and what the hell took us so long to get here?), I’m going to spare you.  Instead I’ll see if John can hurry up with his game so we can get back to Doctor Who.  I have priorities.

Did you guys see this? Cracks me up. I sing it ALL the time now.

(I know – I need to tone down the obsession. I just can’t help myself.)

I swear I’m not a moron…

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…but I recently had two “Are you kidding me?” moments.  One was today.  I usually keep a close eye on the forecast, but for some reason this week, I just haven’t.  John’ll tell you I prefer to trust weather.com than my own arm stuck out the front door.  I didn’t do either of those things today.  I just left the house to go to the store in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops.  It was 60 degrees out, overcast, and breezy.  I was a little chilly.  In my defense, it was 80 yesterday and it isn’t fall yet…  But a guy at Wegmans still totally made fun of me.

My other moment was last weekend, and it was more of the “oh, that really DOES make a difference” kind.  I was helping John unload the IKEA boxes from the car on Saturday, and I usually have a really hard time wrestling with the bookshelf boxes.  Those things are heavy, and in the past, I’ve nearly dropped them on the way into the house because I just couldn’t hold my end up anymore.  Not this time, though.  I wouldn’t say it was easy or that the shelves were light (I certainly can’t carry them on my own), but it was no big deal.  I find it very unlikely that they’ve gotten lighter since my birthday (the last time we bought some), so the only conclusion I can come to is, hey!  Those strength classes I’ve been going to twice a week for the last seven months?  They work!  Amazing, mixed with a little of course they do, ya idiot.

I have four empty shelves now. They look so lonely.

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The books (the fiction), they have been reorganized and reshelved.  I finished just a few minutes ago.  For now, they’re all flush against the front edge (John loves it), but I have a compromise in mind.  I’ll try it tomorrow.  I have pictures, but my phone’s USB cable is upstairs (and the pictures aren’t that great – let’s hope for sunlight tomorrow) and I’m not willing to go get it.  Once I go upstairs tonight, I’m not coming back down.  I also weeded out all the duplicates today.  We have multiple copies of 54 books.  In some cases (The Left Hand of Darkness, War and Remembrance), we have three copies.  There are a couple others we have two of, but for various reasons, I want to keep them in our collection.  The duplicates will probably join the inventory in the basement.  Unless we find someone who’s dying to have a hardcover edition of The Hidden City (the third book in David Eddings’ The Tamuli) or a copy of The Winds of War that is falling apart (most of the books are in pretty good shape, but not this one so much).  Or any of the 48 books I didn’t name.  47.  John doesn’t want to get rid of the extra copy of Johnny Tremain.  (Just like I don’t want to get rid of my extra copy of Anne of Green Gables.  Sure, I have the box set, but I remember reading that copy.)

In other than book news, I found two of the greatest videos ever on The Daily What today.

The first is a bunch of cows looking crazy interested in a Dixieland combo in a field in France. Good music, funny cows.

The second is a juggling video. AMAZING.

Hard choices

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A question for the anal ages:

Do you line up your books along the back of the bookshelf, leaving room for other things (like little framed pictures or empty vases or the small ceramic turtle you bought in Mexico) in front?  Or do you shelve them so the spines all line up evenly along the front of the shelf?  And if you do it the second way, do you do anything with the empty space between the books and the back of the shelf?

I’ve always done it the first way.  John has asked me to try it the second way because it’s neater.  I’ll give him that.  I’m not convinced it’s better, though.  I have this irrational fear that wild animals or spiders or some other unpleasant things are going to move in and nest in that unused space.  Because I can’t see it.  And I’m usually so vigilant.

I wish I hadn’t put that thought into words.

Great day in the morning!

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Seriously, could today have been any better?  Only if it had unicorns and sparkles.  And it’s not over yet.  There’s hope.  Sure, we got up super early on a Saturday, but it was only so we could go to the giant used book sale that happens every six weeks in a warehouse in Annapolis.  Worth it.  AND I had a croissant and my favorite candy-coffee from Starbucks for breakfast on the way (tall, skim, no whip white mocha with two pumps of toffee nut – yes, I’m one of those now).  Extra worth the early wake-up.  AND we hung out with Jess while looking for books and then having bagels.  Better than extra worth it.  And THEN we went to IKEA and bought two more bookshelves, upper shelf extensions for those two plus the six at home that didn’t already have them, plus two wall shelves to go over the couch (and hold more books – maybe the graphic novels?).  We’ve spent the afternoon since then putting the shelves and the extension together while watching Law & Order: SVU, and now we’re going to pick up dinner from somewhere and settle in and watch a movie.

A day like today makes me so very happy.  Books, best friend, shelves, dinner, and a movie, a whole day hanging out with John, and sure, I didn’t do any calculus like originally planned, but John and I worked it out on the way home from IKEA.  Today we get the furniture part out of the way and relax a little.  Tomorrow, we’ll run, mow the lawn (it grew, like, two feet in 8 days), and do homework (my calculus, his thesis).  Sunday is the responsible day.

Happy Friday!

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This week was a short week (thank you for Labor Day – I love three-day weekends) that still managed to feel like a regular week, but Friday is finally here.  Tomorrow I get to see Jess at a great big book used book sale and then I’ll spend the rest of the weekend immersed in calculus.  Except for Sunday morning when I have to run.  And except for later Sunday morning when I’ll help John with the lawn, assuming it dries out.  I’ll have to pretend the internet doesn’t exist, I think.  Give it the cold shoulder.  Hope it doesn’t take offense and will let me back in later.  How forgiving is the internet?  I know it never forgets, which is somewhat (a lot) scary.

If I cared about symmetry, I’d skip the title

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I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

If you can’t tell if someone is taking something, is it really stealing?

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It’s already sad that Borders is going out of business, but who would have guessed they’d be funny about it?

John pointed it out to me the last time we were there, clearing out the science fiction section.  (Well, that part was only me – I’m why you can’t find any of the books you’ve been looking for.  Sorry.)  But really, it’s great that invisibility cloaks are 20% off, but what’s to stop you from just grabbing one and running?  Other than the obvious.

If you were a dog

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If you were a dog, would you want to be an outside dog or an inside dog?  A big dog or a little dog?  A dog with responsibilities or a pet without a care in the world?  I’m watching our two sleep the day away, and I’m just a teensy bit jealous.  Only a teensy bit.  I think they’re sleeping because they’re bored.  I’m not entertaining them.  (I’m working.  Clearly.)  I’m not sure I’d want to be a dog if it meant (as it must) giving up reading.  And talking.  Somebody asked me the other day if all this working from home is isolating.  I don’t feel particularly isolated.  I’m not talking as much as I would if I were in the office, but I don’t think I’m making up for it when John gets home.  (John may disagree.)  I don’t feel starved for human contact.  I talk to the dogs (although not as much as you might think), and I spend plenty of time emailing and calling work people for work stuff.  In fact, I think I spend too much time on that and not enough time on what I wanted to get done in the quiet of home.  Hey, if I turn into a dog, I won’t have to work. Unless I’m a working dog.  But working dogs always seem to enjoy their jobs, so maybe that would be okay.

All clown shoes look the same

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This seemed really funny to me at the time, but now I can’t decide if it’s funny or if I’m just an idiot.  Let’s start with the part where I look good.

Yesterday morning, I ran 8 miles.

Please applaud now.  By the time you get to the end of the story, you may want to pretend you don’t know me.

The first half was really really hard, but I felt really good the whole second half.  I’d like to think that was partly because I didn’t feel loose and warmed up until I was well into my third mile, but I’m sure it was mostly because the last four miles were all downhill.  There was something weird going on with my right foot, though.  It felt like it was asleep half the time, all pins and needles, concentrated behind my toes and around the ball of my foot.  Other times, I could feel this weird rubbing pain along the outside of my big toe.  All in my right foot.  I kept wiggling my toes and trying to lean towards the outer right side while running, but it wasn’t really getting better.  Weird, a little worrisome, but with a little adjustment I could get by.  I figured I’d take a closer look when I got home.  I changed my stride a bit, headed back downhill, and kinda forgot about it for a while.  Later, I was stretching in the kitchen, and when I bent down to reach for my toes (I’d say I was touching my toes, but my whole life I’ve never been able to do that and I’d hate to lie to you), I noticed something a little off.

Look closely.  Do those look like the same shoe to you?  No?  Yeah.  They’re not.

The shoe on my left foot is one half of my current running pair.  The shoe on my right foot is not.  I stopped running in that pair of shoes at least 9 months ago, if not more, because they were shot.  It hurt to run in them.  That certainly explains the weird pains and pins and needles in my right foot only.  And now I feel like an idiot.  I ran 8 miles in two different shoes and I DIDN’T NOTICE.  Except I kinda did.  Kinda.  In my defense, we got up very early and it was overcast and gloomy and we didn’t turn the light on in the bedroom and hey, come on, they look a LOT alike.

But not that alike.  I guess it could have been worse.  At least I had one right shoe and one left shoe and I wore them on the correct feet.  John says I should even it out by running another 8 miles wearing the opposite shoe from each pair.  John thinks he’s pretty funny.  I will make sure my retired running shoes find a new home.  Far away from my current running shoes.  This will not happen again.

I’m now about 98% certain the earth isn’t going to open up and swallow my house.

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Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed something weird about the house.  Very weird.  Every once in a while, in the middle of the day, the house shudders.  The whole house.  You can feel it more downstairs than up.  The first few times it happened, I dashed to the basement to see if the furnace had just died or if the washing machine had attacked the dryer.  Nothing was out of place, nothing looked out of the ordinary.  Then I started to wonder if it was an earthquake.  We did have an itty bitty one not that long ago.  But it had happened at least half a dozen times – wouldn’t there be something in the news about half a dozen earthquakes?  Then I started to worry about crazy things, like sinkholes.  Invasions of mole people burrowing up from under the foundation.  Being stalked by bio-engineered Tyrannosaurus Rexes.  Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Tyrannosauruses.  Tyrannosauri.  It’s like the glass of water in the movie, only with a bigger thud.  Earlier this week, I realized the house shudder thing has never happened on a weekend.  Only on weekdays.  And, except for this week, I’m rarely home on weekdays.  This week, I noticed that it has happened around 11:30am each day.  I mentioned the weekday thing to John yesterday or the day before, wondering if maybe it happens every day during the week, and he had a brilliant thought.  We live not far from a quarry.  Things explode at quarries.  Maybe that’s what we’re feeling.  And they’re only open on weekdays…  I put “call the quarry” on my to-do list.  So today, I was working from home, 11:30 rolled around, and a few minutes later, the house shook.  I picked up the phone and called.  “Do you make things explode at 11:30 every weekday?”  “Well, it’s not always exactly 11:30, but…yeah.”  “Thank you.  That makes me very happy.”  Mystery solved!

Note to self: if we’re ever in a position where we can sell the house, make sure potential buyers leave before 11am or show up after noon.  It’s like that scene in Mary Poppins, only not as entertaining.  “Posts, everyone!”

You’re all absolutely right. It DOES get better. I will never doubt you again.

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We started Doctor Who a while back, but after six episodes we weren’t really thrilled, so we took a break.  I didn’t mention it because, well, because.  I knew I was supposed to like it.  Not liking it undermines what little geek cred I have.  At the urging of yet another friend (which is a reason I felt like I should like it – a large number of friends whose taste in this stuff I trust think it’s great.  What’s wrong with me?  Yeah, yeah, I don’t have to like everything my friends like, whatever…), we tried again the other night.  And all of our friends are right.  It’s better.  I’m not going to quit.  For those who are counting, we watched the 8th episode last night.

Is it weird that I switch pronouns (we to I and back again) like that?  I feel like I do that a lot.  I can’t decide if it sounds like I’m controlling John’s opinions or he’s controlling mine.  Neither of those is true, of course.  We just have similar opinions about TV.  And movies.  And vacations.  And dogs.  And friends.  And lots of things.  Mm.  We sound boring.  I swear, my mind is my own.  We rarely read the same books.  He doesn’t like spicy food.  I don’t like Sons of Anarchy.  He doesn’t like to admit that he finds cat videos amusing.  (Some of them.  I mean, come ON.  Cat videos are what the interwebs were built on.)  Etc.

To sum up, here’s a video (from The Daily What) of a mariachi band serenading a whale.

My night off…

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…starts now.  I’ve been eating and breathing statistics for over a week.  I took my midterm this afternoon,  I’m home now, John’s in charge of dinner (I think), and I don’t have to jump right into the next statistics chapter just yet.  I have a glass of wine, random French jazz in the CD player (CDs Mom burned and gave me – no idea what the specifics are, but I was in the mood for something unusual and mellow), and a new book.  And I’m going to slice some cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe will get me through this heat wave.

This time it was completely my fault

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Have I told you the story about getting pulled over by the police right after getting my first car?  Some of you know this already.  Here’s the short version:

I was 16 years old, it was summer, and Mom and Dad had just bought me my first car (a 1988 black hatchback Toyota Corolla named Cricket).  They immediately went on vacation near the Finger Lakes in New York.  Far far away from home in Lexington, KY.  Corey was I-don’t-know-where, but not living at home anymore, so it doesn’t really matter, and Mel and I were staying by ourselves.  One day, I went to pick her up, and on our way home, we got pulled over.  I was freaking out, Mel was trying to get me to breathe, and I noticed the police officer look at the back of my car as he came to the window.  I knew I hadn’t been speeding (I was a paranoid beginner driver), so I thought maybe I had a tail light out or something.  Short version, right.  My sticker (the one that has the year on it) looked to the police officer like it had been torn off somehow.  I didn’t have the registration in the car (too new, I guess), and he gave me a citation and told me to take care of it.  This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t call Mom and Dad, and when they eventually called us (it must have been that night, but in my memory it took them three days), they told me to check the mail for the registration and sticker.  Nothing yet.  The next morning, I was on my way to pick Mel up again, and as I made a left turn out of our neighborhood, I got pulled over again.  As the police officer got out of her car, I saw her check the license plate just like the last guy, so I had the citation from the day before in my hand when she got to my window.  I explained everything, showed her the citation, told her I was taking care of it, and she let me go.  But this was traumatizing.  Pulled over twice in two days, for something that I maintain was not my fault.  John wants to know why I was driving the car without the registration and I can only claim ignorance.  Registration?  Stickers?  My parents gave me the keys.  I didn’t ask any questions.  End of story: the registration came in the mail, I put the sticker on the plate, and took care of the citation downtown.  I’ve never gotten a ticket (that one I thought I’d get from the red light camera in DC never came), and I’ve only been pulled over once (for rolling through a stop sign in my neighborhood), and the deputy sheriff let me off with a warning.

Fast forward to today.  Right after I left work, I mean right after I left – it was after the very first turn I made – I heard the whoop of the siren and saw flashing lights.  I pulled over.  The very nice Deputy Sheriff Diaz came up to my window and told me my registration is expired.  I said something clever like, “Oh?”  He asked me what I thought he was pulling me over for, and I said, “I thought maybe I” stop talking stop talking stop talking “ran that stop sign.”  Damn.  I’m incapable of shutting up.  Thankfully, he said “No, you were fine there.”  And then I remembered that I had to wait for traffic to clear before making that right, so I must have stopped.  Anyway, he asked for my registration, and I went rummaging for it even though at this point I knew damn well I hadn’t renewed it.  John and I had just talked about it a few days ago.  Why didn’t I do it then?  Whatever.  I played dumb a little and discovered last year’s registration.  It expired in May.  Ouch.  He took my license and sat in his car looking up whatever they look up that takes so freaking long.  I was watching him in the rearview mirror and after a while, I saw an unmarked car with lights going pull up behind him.  What the hell?  Did he call in for back-up?  What’s going on?  Since I was staring at the flashing lights behind me, I didn’t see him come back, so when he appeared at my window again, I jumped a mile.  He apologized for startling me, and I gestured to the unmarked car.  “Do we need back-up for this?”  He laughed (thank God – I really should just shut up) and said there was an accident a little ways back.  Doesn’t explain why that guy showed up here, but whatever.  It wasn’t for me.  Anyway, he gave me the citation, told me I could either pay early or go to court, show my renewed registration, and there’s a 90% chance the judge would drop the charges.  I’ll see how much the fine is and then decide.  Then he told me to drive carefully and he sent me on my way.

About 4 miles closer to home, I looked in my rearview mirror to see another county sheriff’s car change from the left lane into my lane.  There went the whoop of the siren and the lights.  I pulled over.  Guess what?  He looked at my license plate.  He got to my window, asked for license and registration, and before I could reach for them, he said he was pulling me over because of my expired sticker.  Big surprise, although this time I was speeding a little.  (Maybe 7 over the speed limit.  People in the left lane were going faster than me.)  I picked up the citation that was still sitting on my passenger seat and handed it to him.  “Sir, I was pulled over for that not five minutes ago.”  He checked the time on the citation, checked his watch, smiled a little, and told me he wouldn’t give me another ticket.  Damn right he won’t.  Can they even do that?  I told him I’d take care of it as soon as I got home and spent the rest of the drive home half-convinced he was going to radio one of his buddies to keep an eye out for my car and pull me over again.

No more incidents.  And my registration has been renewed.  How crazy is it that, with one exception, the only times I’ve been pulled over have been for that tiny little sticker AND that I got pulled over twice in a very short period of time in both instances?  Totally crazy.  Loony bin crazy.  Spiders in roller skates crazy.

You can’t say I’m not loyal

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If you’ve been a reader for a while (or you know me in real life), I’m sure you’re aware of my lifelong devotion to Huey Lewis and the News, illustrated by my need to see them live every time they come anywhere near me (counting last night, that’s five concerts – more than any other show of any kind except Les Mis, whose count is at six, soon to be seven).  (And that’s five concerts with John in tow, who, even though he enjoys the shows and likes Huey just fine, gets a little irritated when he realizes he’s seen them more times than, say, U2 (two, maybe three) or Van Halen (two, maybe three) or Springsteen (four).)

I love Huey.  And because of this love and the knowledge that I will never abandon him or the News (whatever their lineup), I can say this.  Last night’s concert was….not the greatest.  It was not like the other four.  The other four were awesome.  They did what any band (ANY band) who’s had a bunch of hits in the past does.  They played the hits.  Sure, at other concerts they played some stuff from the more recent albums, but those were upbeat and fun and there were only a couple.  Mostly, they played stuff everyone knows and loves and everyone sang along and danced and had an all-around good time.

Last night, there was a distinct lack of energy, both from the band and the audience.  The band recently released a new album (“Soulsville”), (which I will buy and enjoy, I’m sure), but rather than play a handful of songs from that album and then old stuff the rest of the night (like they’ve done in the past, like EVERY OTHER BAND with a back catalog of hits does), they played almost the entire album last night.  In a row.  It was good, it was fine, but it’s not what we (I’m fairly certain the whole crowd was with me on this) were hoping for.  Huey opened with “Heart of Rock and Roll”, of course, with the stage lights flashing red in time with the bass drum heartbeat, and that was cool, but then there were six or seven songs (at least) from “Soulsville”.  Then five or six old songs (“Heart and Soul”, “Small World”, “I Want a New Drug”, “60 Minute Man” (that one was a cappella), a couple others I can’t remember right now), and then back into another two or three songs from “Soulsville” and then they left the stage.  Disappointing.  Of course, they came back for the encore (I’m not entirely sure why everybody plays along with this charade – as long as the house lights haven’t come up, you know they’re coming back.  Maybe they need the break.), started with “The Power of Love” (which finally got everyone on their feet – that was the best song of the night), and then Huey took a few requests (“Bad Is Bad”, “If This Is It”, and I think there was one more, but I can’t think of it), and then it was really over.  The best part of the night was the encore, but every other time I’ve seen him, the whole concert has been like that part.

I feel like I’ve been a little too negative.  The soul stuff was good.  I love his voice.  There’s something about it that makes me very happy.  Even though he didn’t play the songs I was hoping for, I still had a good time.  And I will see them again.  And again.  And again.  I can’t help myself.

Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce!

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Baltimore is not close.  Not during rush hour.  Not in the middle of the week.  Did we go and have a really good time (once we got there)?  Of course we did.  We saw U2.  How could that not be a good time?  It’s gotta be one of the longest tours ever, though.  We saw them almost two years ago – same album, same tour.  This show might have been better than that one, though.  They still had the whole crowd singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and that was still awesome (maybe a little awesome-er), and they still have the weird alien monster/spaceship stage set thingy.


Our seats were as far away from the stage as you could get and still be in the stadium.  I could barely pick each band member out on the stage.  Good thing the alien overlords brought giant screens with them.  It sounded incredible, though.  I love when I can feel the drums and bass in my chest and under my feet.

I liked how they did “Beautiful Day” this time around.  The giant screen showed pictures of Earth from space, and Bono said they were dedicating the song to Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and then the camera switched to a video of her husband, the astronaut, while he was actually out in space about a month ago.  He introduced the song with floaty cue cards (normal cue cards, but he was in space, so on with the floating), and then Bono started singing and it was really cool (I like that song a lot).  During the part near the end (“See the world in green and blue, see China right in front of you…”), Bono was singing those lines under Mr. Congresswoman Astronaut Mission Commander’s spoken version.  I liked it.

Later, I don’t remember during which song, the alien invader shot beams of light into space.  I can only assume it was contacting the mothership.  We’ll have to keep an eye on the skies for a little while.

They played for about two hours, and it took us another hour or so to get back to the car, and then we waited for almost 20 minutes in the drive-thru of the worst McDonald’s in Maryland just to get some fries and caffeine so we’d make it back home.  Otherwise, the trip home was pretty easy, relatively quick, and we were asleep by 2:30.  And up at 8.  I’m TIRED.  I don’t do the middle of the night well anymore.

John, looking a little like Jack Nicholson here, does his best to hide his frustration at the traffic.

Every picture I tried to take once it got dark came out really bad, so there’s no point sharing them.  We ran into a guy I knew in college (he was in ROTC with me) while standing in the Will Call line to get our tickets.  We were never really friends, just acquaintances, and this is the second time we’ve run into each other in three or four years.  Once at the mall in Tysons, and once in Baltimore.  Neither of us lives anywhere near either of those places.  Maybe the universe is telling us we should be friends.  That would be easier if we’d exchanged any information at all.  Not something I’ll lose any sleep over.  I don’t have any sleep to lose.

It was a good concert, we had a good time, and I’m glad we went.  Even if I do have circles under my eyes so dark they could be mistaken for that black paint they put on football players to cut down on the glare.  (That’s why they do that, right?  Not to look scarier?)  I’m putting Baltimore up there with FedEx Field on the list of places I won’t go for a concert unless it’s for someone REALLY good.  The traffic, the parking, the whole tedious hassle of getting there and back – it’s got to be worth it.  I think U2 was worth it.  Ask me again in a few days, after I’ve slept.

No, it was worth it.  Not because it was U2.  I like doing something.  With John.  This was a 10-hour round trip, nonstop time with John on our way to and from seeing one of his favorite bands of all time.  I’d do it again.  But I’ll plan to take the next day off work.

Things I’m anxious about today

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I woke up this morning a little crazy with anxiety.  The worst thing about it is that I woke up with a list of all the things I should be doing on a loop in my head, and then I froze.  I could have gotten up right then to get started on the list, but did I?  No, I stayed in bed.  Because I could put off all the hard things.  I do that all the time (procrastinate).   Of course, that gives me less time overall to get everything done, so all it really does is ratchet up the anxiety a little more.  Not exactly helpful behavior.

Instead, let’s a play a game (courtesy of Mom) called “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anxiety Causing Thing #1: Quiz #4 for vector calculus and the midterm I have to take on Thursday

What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, I could get all the answers wrong on my quiz, but that doesn’t affect my grade (just makes my professor think I’m an idiot), so there isn’t anything to worry about there.  Of course, my performance on my quizzes is an indicator of my performance on the midterm, so if I don’t do well on my quizzes, I may not do well on my midterm.  And I could fail my midterm.  So what if I do?  I won’t have a very good grade in my calculus class.  That would be a blow to my ego (something I could survive), and it may put me on the road to failing this class.  What if I fail the class?  I’m taking it online at a community college because I need the prereq for grad school.  If I fail it, I’m out approximately $350.  If I fail it, I can retake it later.  Will I fail it?  Probably not.  I may not get an A.  I may not even get a B.  But I probably won’t fail.  I submitted my quiz this morning (confident that I got three out of four right), so that’s out of my hands, and I still have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to study for the midterm.  Breathe deep.

Anxiety Causing Thing #2: Work

What’s the worst that could happen?  I could get fired.  Or laid off.  Or whatever.  That could happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it (and there’s no immediate indication that it’s coming), so that’s not what’s making me edgy.  There’s nothing specific about work that’s bothering me.  No major deadlines, no one is asking me to do anything I’m not capable of, I don’t have any issues with any coworkers.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t want to come here every day.  (I know, whine whine whine, most people don’t actually like going to work.)  I want to do something with flexible hours where I can work from home and have more time for me.  The math that’s stressing me out is the first step in that direction, so this is more of a low-level, back-burner, always-bugging-me sort of thing that every once in a while jumps up and says, “Hey!  Loser!  Worry about me!”

Anxiety Causing Thing #3: Army Ten-Miler

Did I tell you about this?  A few weeks ago, John registered to run in the Army Ten-Miler this October, and I caved to the very mild peer pressure and registered with him.  So what’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll be so slow that the bus that picks up the slowpokes who aren’t going to finish in the required time will pick me up.  Humiliating.  I have 17 weeks to train for it.  I had more, but I didn’t use them.  I can’t procrastinate on this one, so every day I don’t start this training plan gets under my skin, and I didn’t run today.  Well, I kinda did.  I sprinted around the block (up the hills) a couple of times with the dogs this morning.  My math anxiety trumped my race anxiety this morning – I spent the extra time on my quiz.  (SuzRocks sent me a link to a half-marathon training plan.  I figure if I’m capable of running a half-marathon by the time I finish training, ten miles should seem easy.  Ish.  I just need to start the &^$* training plan.)

There are other things that bug me (there are always other things), but those are the three I woke up with this morning.  Peace, serenity, lots of gym time tonight, some studying…I’ve got it under control.

Happy thoughts!