what the heart sees.

"Self-Portrait" by Naolito, seen here

i love this.

my first race

three Saturdays ago i ran in my first race ever- the Get in Gear 10k here in Minneapolis. i've been sloooowly increasing my mileage over the last 6 months and wanted to run something that would feel like a challenge, like meeting a goal. i never understood racing- why pay money to run a route you can run any day of the week for free? but i can now confidently say- i get it. it's a totally different feeling to be running with thousands of people in a celebratory atmosphere, vs. plodding along by yourself with just an iPod for company. i don't know if it made me run faster, or if my previous attempts at timing myself by the podcasts i listen to were woefully inaccurate... but i was quite surprised by my results. i was hoping to finish in under 56:00, and this is was really happened.

i guess all the fast 30-34 year old ladies stayed home, because somehow i landed in the top 10% of my division!

the day before, Matt had gotten a new camera in the mail- a digital 8mm. so instead of pictures of my first race, he took some video and edited it into a little film that is pretty great.



other things of note that day:

- it was cold with drizzling and sleeting off and on. i was surprised by the number of seemingly experienced runners wearing garbage bags as rain gear. apparently that's a "thing"- it's insulating and when they get too warm they can just toss 'em. who knew!

- i'm glad i decided not to bring my iPod- with the wet roads, potholes, and weaving through hundreds of runners in the first half mile, i had all the distractions i needed.

- the race route is one that i run on a weekly basis, so i'm very familiar with the landmarks. there is a synagogue near the end and whenever i see it, i think, "yay almost done." when i approached it during the race, there was a guy on the front lawn holding up a sign that said ALMOST DONE! apparently i'm not the only one!

- as i rounded the corner for the Ford Parkway Bridge (less than a mile to go) i was suddenly pretty tired and had to give myself a pep talk. as i crested the top and started jogging down the other side, the music from DJ positioned under the bridge started coming up through the grates. and what was the song i heard as i ran by? Shook You All Night Long by AC/DC. suddenly, i had all the energy i needed.

so what race should i run next? another 10k? a 10-miler? or just wait for the half marathon in October...?

you don't say?

Blowing up carcasses is a little bit of an inexact science.

- favorite thing i heard on NPR last week

wednesday night.

worked a long, annoying workday... while staring longingly at the beautiful weather outside. came home to find that Matt had picked up our favorite take out meal for dinner. that, a Kayak Kolsch and old episodes of Biggest Loser made it all better.

in other news, tonight i learned that Matt has never heard of Raffi. and this man calls himself a musician!



when i was little, my friend Katherine & I were obsessed with a snake. she was a giant boa constrictor named Joyous Squeezer who lived at the Discovery Center in Charlotte, about 1.5 hours away. our moms would often drive us up there to go visit her- stars in their crowns for sure. i remember sitting in the back seat with Katherine, under a blanket, and singing along to the Baby Beluga album & Paul Simon (the "mama pajama" song), over and over and over again.

Garden update. week 1-1.5

this is more for my mom and godmother Robin, who flew up 2 weekends ago to transform our blank slate of a backyard into the beginning of something beautiful. they were so generous with their time and resources; i want to keep them up to date on the plants they left in my black thumb's care. eep!

first of all, whoever convinced the other 2 of us to get the bleeding hearts is a genius. these things are blooming like champs right now and make me so happy. (click any of the photos- except the first one for some reason- for an enlarged version)

the rhododendrons have lost most of their original blooms, but there is new growth on both of them. 

this guy has lost a few branches... super mutant squirrels hopped up on flour tortillas?

the hostas are all doing great. the ferns are surviving despite periodic trampling by our mutant squirrel and bunny population. (i even tried staking one, to no avail. edit- i tried staking the FERN, not the squirrel/bunny) i did put out some red pepper flakes around the bed by the garage, but maybe i need more...?

the lilac is looking alright, but some of its leaves are browning a bit on the tips, and a couple of the blooms are droopy despite the rain. any idea?

the burning bush, hydrangea, and arborvitae all looks the same. ditto for the herbs. we've gotten enough rain lately that i haven't had to water. it's actually raining right now and will continue through tomorrow. it has been so, so nice to look out our windows or come home from work and see actual gardens with beautiful plants in our yard. i am excited to get another fern & hosta, and hopefully decide on what to use as a border. right now i am thinking about brick... mom, feel free to pin any brick border gardens on Pinterest for me!

the Cheez-it Situation

i've never had much of a sweet tooth. i don't really like cake or- gasp- cupcakes. usually the only "dessert" thing in our house is a bar of BT McElrath dark chocolate. what i do have is a salty tooth. i crave savory, salty snacky things. wheat thins, pistachios, oriental snack mix, tortilla chips, and my latest addiction- Cheez-its. i have zero self-control around Cheez-its. it started with a mid-afternoon snack emergency at work (random factoid- all items in our vending machines are kosher). i had forgotten how delicious Cheez-its were, and after a weekish i had zero change in my purse because i had given it all to the vending machine. so of course the next time i went to the grocery store, i bought a box b/c it's more economical and therefore smarter, right? wrong. if there is a box in the house or at work, it's gone within a day or two. i'm not saving money on Cheez-its, i'm just eating more Cheez-its.

i tried leaving the box at home and just taking a small portion to work with me. no dice- i get home and then eat all the Cheez-its. if the box is at work, there's no hope. how can i simultaneously allow myself a reasonable portion of Cheez-its while also protecting myself from what remains in the box?

well, i stumbled upon a solution and i'm quite proud of myself. recently at the grocery store i noticed a box of Cheez-its in small snack portions, like for kids' lunchboxes. so i bought a box and left it in the trunk of my car. now, if i am at home or work and want Cheez-its, i have to drag my lazy ass out to the alley/parking lot to retrieve a modestly-portioned bag from my car. folks, this has worked like a charm. i've had the box for weeks and have dipped into it maybe twice a week. it's a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but i'll take what i can get.

photos from here & here

yeah, good luck booking in Mpls too

my top 3 favorite smells, for no particular reason

1. Bombay Sapphire Gin. if i could wear it as perfume, i would.

2. the inside of the Seward co-op. warm, healthy, and inviting.

3. onions & mushrooms sauteing with a little garlic.

Mayor crowd surfs, bellybutton exposed.

have i told you lately, that i love our mayor? because here is another reason:

from the Trampled by Turtles show at First Ave last night. photo by Erik Hess, seen here.

errrnnggggh!

this totally encapsulates how i feel after a particularly long work week.
get me the eff outta here!

(photo from here)

cats.

what i learned last night: time on the couch is not a waste if there is a kitty in your lap. Gordon leapt up on my lap while i was watching Bill Cunningham New York and showed no signs of leaving when it was over. (usually he hangs out for 5-10 minutes and then moves on to the next thing in his itinerary) so i started another documentary in my queue- the Eames doc- and settled in for a little more kitty cuddle time.

my lesson learned takes on a new meaning when i saw these pictures this morning, from Tippi Hedren's home. she runs a big cat sanctuary in California, and Anton LaVey's former lion Togar came to live with her family as their household pet.

photos by Michael Rougier for LIFE, seen here.

Pearl Jam (Twenty)

i was born in 1980, so i came into adolescence right at the onset of the early 90's grunge boom. and i embraced it wholeheartedly. plaid flannel and thrift store clothes. beat up Chucks. crying over Kurt and wearing black to school the rest of the week. Headbanger's Ball on MTV. (MTV all the time, actually) Nirvana, Hole, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, even the one-off Temple of the Dog... but most of all, Pearl Jam.


oh, Pearl Jam. i was a little young for Ten, but then Vs. came out when i was 13 and it was love at first listen. and i was obsessed with Eddie Vedder. i had a bulletin board plastered with photos of him ripped out of magazines. (my only major brush with the law- i would rip them out of magazines at the grocery store! such a rebel.) anytime PJ was on MTV, i was there at the VCR hitting record. i had VHS tape after VHS tape of their music videos, their legendary Unplugged show, VMA award show performances... anything. i was so fascinated with & intrigued by them, by EV. his persona was so intense, he was this dark, angry, explosive, beautiful man... something this brand new teenager had never encountered before, and i didn't know what to make of him. to me he was a hard-shelled, impenetrable enigma. which is a great kind of person to crush on, really.



eventually, my musical tastes & priorities changed and my obsession slowly ebbed to nothing much. when my cd's were stolen in 2003, i didn't bother replacing the PJ ones. when Matt and i moved in together, i didn't even bother importing his PJ cds into my iTunes. they were just a part of my past.

i had heard that 2011 was PJ's 20th anniversary, and that the great Cameron Crowe had made a documentary in celebration. it was on American Masters one night and i caught about 10 minutes of it, enough to make me reserve it in my Netflix queue. i finally got a chance to watch it last week, and wow. total nostalgia attack. suddenly i was 14 again, sitting in front of the TV with my finger poised over the record button. the movie looks and feels like the 90's- crazy collaged multi-media, frenetic editing, tv clips and interviews from that era. you can tell this was the guy who made Singles. for me, the film totally evokes the energy and feeling of that time in music & culture.

also interesting was how the movie kinda revealed a little more of EV's personality & chronicled his maturation. the dark, angry explosiveness i used to see on TV seemed to be masking a naïve, vulnerable guy. in the early clips it manifests as a hyper little boy acting out, but in the later interviews, it's a mature, introverted tenderness that is really endearing.


plus he's aged really well, yes?


ps- while PJ fell off my radar, i absolutely love the Into the Wild soundtrack, which is all EV. my favorites from that album are Far Behind and Rise, but they're all worth a listen. the cd packaging is sweet too.

The Lover's Dictionary

Sometimes desire is air; sometimes desire is liquid. And every now and then, when everything else is air and liquid, desire solidifies, and the body is the magnet that draws its weight.

this was another short, quick read. The Lover's Dictionary tells the story of one couple's relationship through personalized entries in a dictionary. the dictionary is alphabetized, so the story is nonlinear, but it's easy to pick up the narrative arc through the entries. if you like books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or anything by Nick Hornby, you would enjoy this. below are a couple of my favorite pages:


commonplace, adj.

it swings both ways, really.
i'll see your hat on the table and i'll feel such longing for you, even if you're only in the other room. if i know you aren't looking, i'll hold the green wool up to my face, inhale that echo of your shampoo and the cold air from outside.
but then i'll walk into the bathroom and find you've forgotten to put the cap back on the toothpaste again, and it will be this splinter that i just keep stepping on.


punctuate, adj.

cue the imaginary interviewer:
Q: so when all is said and done, what have you learned here?
A: the key to a successful relationship isn't just in the words, it's in the choice of punctuation. a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and i deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations.

one tiny hand.

cannot. stop. laughing.

the new best website on the internet. thank you Kottke.