Personal Triumph

Five years ago while I was in chemo, my oncology nurse suggested I try walking the Huckleberry Trail with the dog for some exercise. She told me where the trail starts behind the mall, and cautioned me to only walk as far as the big bridge (maybe 10 minutes?) and then turn around no matter how good I felt. And she was right. At the bridge I was very tempted to go further, but heeded her advice and was literally trudging back up the mall hill and went straight home for a nap.

I just came home from my first run on the Huckleberry. I started at the base of the mall hill -- I've biked up it, no way was I including it in my run. I ran to the first bridge past Merrimac and back, 3.7 miles. I've never run hills before, it certainly adds something! I'm glad no one was around to hear, because the last hill made me start cheering myself on trying to get past it. And I did!

I saw a male & female cardinal doing a courting ritual on the path. They would hear me coming and fly about 20 feet ahead and start up their dance, again and again. They looked like they kissed at one point. Very cute.

Tattoo Part 1

Sat. night I got the first part of my new tattoo inked. It's a series of autumn leaves blowing in a gust of wind. I've wanted a hip tattoo for a while, and was trying to decide what exactly I wanted when I stumbled upon a note I'd written about 8 years ago with the idea of a blowing leaves or snowflakes tattoo. Autumn means a lot more to me than winter, so it was an easy choice.

Shaun only had time to outline 3 leaves and shade the first 2. There will be 7 total, curving around my hip towards my back. Each leaf is from a tree that is special to me in some way. So far I have:

Liquidambar styraciflua (Sweetgum)
Liriodendron tulipifera (Tulip Tree)
Quercus alba (White Oak)

Yes, I'm a complete dork and know the latin botanical name for each one. I still remember the identification quirks for each one from college ecology, too.

I love the vibrant colors and shading of the leaves. I can't wait to see what the next ones look like. Here's a closeup of the shading:


The way we're designing it is fun. Shaun drew each leaf individually, and I flip it around on my skin until it's where I want. While he's working on one leaf I lay there and think about what colors to use for the next one. The tattooing isn't bad, except there was a ticklish spot he inked that made it hard to lie still. Now I know how a dog must feel when you scratch its 'giggle nerve' and it starts to pat its foot.

I'll post up more pictures once it's finished, I just had to share what I have so far.

Self improvement is tiring

I now have 3 months of successfully running 3 miles 3 mornings a week completed. Completely coincidently now that the 4th month of the year is starting, I'm going to increase to 4 mornings a week. With the improvement in the weather I'm taking the dogs walking/hiking in the evenings more. I'm eating healthier--many days at lunch I wonder why I always run out of spinach in my salad, despite the laughably tall pile falling off my plate. Of course, I usually put something interesting (like a lean cuisine pizza or the meat/cheese of a turkey sandwich) on top of it. I'm dancing more, camping, and gardening again. During the week I keep up pretty well with everything. But lately on the weekends I've just crashed. I still do stuff, but I feel so dragged out I end up laying around reading for hours. It's like all the motivation and will power I have during the week evaporates for those 2 days. The problem is that it comes as a shock, I feel like I want to do stuff, but just never summon the effort needed. Hmm...maybe if my 4th day of running is Sat. morning it will gear me up for the rest of the day.

Jungian collective disinterest?

I just flipped through my regular online life -- the series of email accounts, facebook, and friends' blogs that I normally stay current with. I noted that nothing was happening on any front, despite not checking them for a few days. A few months ago all of them were updated frequently. Facebook was entertainingly updated each time I logged on, and I nearly always had at least one email to reply to. Then we all seem to have mutually lost interest in our online lives. No one really updates their blogs anymore (myself included) or chats through facebook like we did. I wonder why it happened? Did we all suddenly get bored with ourselves, or too busy to bother? Was it a collective domino effect, with each person's lack of posting influencing those who normally read it and used to post themselves? Maybe we all kept each other going, and with the first stumble we ground to a halt. Maybe the same theory will work to bring us all back up to some semblance of regular posting. Y'know, I think it's probably a reflection of the fact that none of us are really internet-obsessed bloggers. The former frequent posting was a lark, a fad that ran its course. But just in case it's not, here's my own little attempt to get things moving again. I did always enjoy reading the irreverent tidbits everyone shared

A little inspiration...or coercion

There's a Hafla (bellydancing dance party) this Saturday. It includes open floor dancing and performances by various members of the dance community. My dance troupe had planned to work up a choreography and perform, but for various reasons everyone (except me) wasn't sure they'd be in town that night. I decided to design a solo, dancing to a rock song rather than the traditional Middle Eastern music most people use. Life, work, and a lack of inspiration got in the way and I never much worked on a choreography. I announced at last week's practice that I wasn't going to perform. That got the rest of the troupe riled up and they forced me to perform what little I had and improv the rest right that minute for them. Well, it went better than expected and everyone liked what I did, even though I couldn't remember what I'd made up after it was done. It inspired me to finalize a choreography and sew several new costume pieces. I did a dress rehearsal at practice last night and felt pretty good about it. No, I felt great. I'm so glad now that I let myself be coerced into working up a solo. Now comes the last few days of practice, where people catch me singing and dancing to myself in my lab coat at work, and my car stereo plays nothing but The Song while I shimmy in my car seat. Oh, and the frantic last minute costume sewing, from which I'm taking a brief break and really have to get back to. That's one problem with never using patterns to sew, it takes a lot more time and effort to figure out how you want some pieces to look. Hopefully I'll be able to tape the performance so you all can see it. Who knows, maybe it'll even be YouTube-worthy. Of course, my standards are a fair bit higher than some of the tripe you see posted.

Death by healthy beverage

I know drinking too much grapefruit juice in one sitting will hurt my stomach. So will drinking too much milk. So why did I just drink a tall glass of juice and then another of milk? I can feel them fiendishly plotting my downfall together. I'm blaming the Simply Juice people, and the folks at Homestead Creamery for my current state of blleeaaaggghhh.

Things I've noticed today

I finally found a place to drop off my recycling! I hate that I've wanted to recycle for ages, yet couldn't find anywhere to accept it. Geesh, I even save kitchen scraps for composting, yet couldn't recycle a freakin glass bottle. Anyway, there's a place at the CRC with dumpster bins for recyclables. I'm going to make it a regular stop on the way to work from now on. Hooray!

It's far more fun to bellydance with other people than alone. Especially if you're dancing together and not just practicing the same moves at the same time. My excitement over dancing goes up exponentially in a group, which is why I *still* haven't really worked at home on my solo that's coming up in like 3 weeks.

I'd like to give my dog a snack without her engulfing my hand up to the second knuckles. No matter what I'm holding or how gingerly I drop it, there I am with sopping fingertips afterwards. But I can hold a small treat in my mouth and she'll ever so gently take it without touching my face, except her whiskers. Windy has a massive cat-like set of whiskers, we call them her sensor array.

If your boss demands a minimum business casual dress code, he shouldn't get upset when women wear heels that make noise when we walk. It's not our fault he paved the hallways with bricks, or built the front room to acoustically amplify the smallest sound. And we're super not allowed to wear shoes that scuff the blazing white floors, which most women's flats will do. So, scuffy shoes are out, heels are discouraged (he refers to them as noisy shoes), no clogs, no open heel or open toe shoes of any kind. What pray tell do you wear with a skirt or nice pair of trousers?

Do you think there's something in the air? Almost everyone I know either feels bad physically or mentally. We're all stressed, tired, overworked, overwhelmed, irritable, worried, grumpy. Isn't there a spring wind that brings bad vibes called the foehn? I don't know if what we have going counts, but it could explain a lot.