some sun and rain......

what a week! last sunday, i finished my 5th marathon and the days that followed were filled many aches and pains, attention and just a weird week. The marathon was the toughest one i have ever done. if you want to read why, see oneingatl.blogspot.com.

my body was limited to a slow shuffle at work on monday; my thighs torn up from the many hills we had to climb...each time i rose from my desk, i felt like i had 100 lb weights on my quads. It was not a sweet pain wherein, the past it had been. Because I was disappointed by the effort I was able to put forth and my ultimate finish, the pain seemed every worse. After every other marathon, i have beenleft with sweet pain that is satisfying and gratifying. not this time. i am not saying i am not proud to have been out there, i’m just also disappointed. i can be both. right?

thank goodness for my pal, AJ, at work. she is my confidante, buddy, one to joke and tease with and even, a little gossip here and there. and this week, i realized how important it was to be able to have someone with WHINE to. Thanks, AJ. She put up with my whining about my body all week. I am not one who easily whines, but i suppose due to how our friendship has developed, i felt very comfortablle whining away to her. By Friday, I think she may have been over it though. :)

Mid week brought some trickles of disconcerting news...none of which had anything to do with me, but somehow seeped into my psychic space or something like that...the first was that there was a news report out that at a nearby highway overpass, a woman had jumped. suicide. i pass the same spot each week. it’s always disconcerting to hear of a jumper...especially a jumper who chooses to jump and land on concrete. how much pain must one be in to make that choice?! A s someone from SF, i am quite familiar with hearing of jumpers of the beloved golden gate....but it wasn’t until last year that i heard of folks jumping from overpasses onto the highways. wow. makes my insides squirm.

same day, got a call from a friend who mentioned her friend’s husband was talking of suicide and had to be hospitalized.

next morning at work, i come in and greet AJ. Usually she is so bubbly and very talkative....not so that morning. with watery eyes, she told me that her ex-boyfriends(who she remains close too) daughter was sentenced to 10 years in jail. (about 2 years ago, she had been drinking, went wrong way on the highway and got into an accident, killing 2 young men)
Of course, the whole thing is tragic. tragic for her who had rarely been a drinker, who was a local successful college athete,who came from a white-collar family, who had a family of her own.

tragic for the lives lost. 2 young lives. my friend, AJ, feels for her friend and his fear and what he goes through as a father watching his daughter face the consequences of her actions.

Vehicular Involuntary manslaughtger is tough. As a person who lost my mother this way, i know it all too well. Back in 1983, this was not punished very much, as we learned the man who caused the accident was left to go free and unpunished from his actions. Where was justice? As a child, i had been so angry. Why did he get to be free when someone had died and others, nearly dead? It wasn’t until years later when i understood that he would have to live with his actions for all days. Could anything be worse?

I honestly don’t know what the penalty should be for this crime. You don’t mean to kill someone, buy you do. All I believe is that our justice system is far from justice...far....

Yesterday, clients came in to the office. A woman and her son. Her husband, his father, recently passed away very suddenly. He was my client & they came in to deal with some of his affairs. He had been a heathly 70 - something year old. Went out for his usual jog and when he stopped and cooled down, he collapsed. Cause of death was not determined. He was and they are a family of tremendous faith. Sitting and sharing and listening with them was solemn and very sacred. Their grief alive and yet so was their faith in their god. The gentleman had been in the marines much earliier in his life and so part of his funeral was military. The marines gave a 21 gun salute.The son said, “when i looked around at that point, i was so proud to be his son.” his words quiet and clear. I was lucky to be a witness.

Interspersed with all this was having to intereact with people in a much more cheerful way than i was up to...but you just do it..
And then, of course, there were much lighter moments....AJ teasing me about my aches and pains and saying, “ok. i was sympathetic on tuesday, but now, it’s friday, so...”

This seems to be an interesting post on the heels of the last one about bigness and smallness. On monday, it was easy for me to feel big because of the marathon achievement and all the folks in the office congratulating me and wasnting all the detaiils and such. it was nice, of course.

and then, little by little, i am reminded of my smallness. death has a funny way of doing that, doesn’t it?

Big and small

(written yesterday via blackberry)

Sitting outside on the big patio like area of the 19th floor. I have a
nearly 360 view of the city of atlanta. Its a beautiful sunny afternoon
and I am the only one up here, savoring my lunch salad and some quiet.
I come up here to get away and get some perspective. I come up here for
air and to see the beauty and the vastness around me. From way down
below, I hear many horns intermittenly blowing...I hear the roar of buses
and the slamming of car breaks. There are green trees everywhere and
interspersed are many homes and buidings, small and then bigger
skyscrapers. And even more being built as I type. From my view, I count 10
cranes...all within maybe 1-1/2 miles radius.
I am all one for being a confident, self-assured person. I'm all for
being a go-getter, and for celebrating one's success. I'm all for
supporting myself and others to be big.

I also like being reminded of my smallness. Coming up here reminds me
of just that....my smallness. Just now, a plane roared up above...a
plane full of people going somewhere. And invariably, as I sit up here and
enjoy my salad and space, someone is giving birth, someone is breathing
their final breath, someone is being buried, someone is committing
suicide, someone is sending flowers to their love, someone is crying,
someone is laughing, someone is trying our for a part, someone is locked in
prison, someone is swimming, someone is screaming, someone is making a
bomb, someone is finding a cure, someone is getting starbucks in brazil,
someone is buying loads and loads of weapons, someone is getting high,
someone is getting off, someone is holding a child's tiny hand, someone
is wheeling someone around in a wheelchair, someone is....

There is so much happening all the time everyday. Everything is
important and nothing is important.
It's great to be big.
And it's great to remember how small I am.

tid-bit

hot hostess in a lovely spring dress opens the door for me as i come in. recognizes me. calls me sweetie. opens the door for me as i leave. calls me sweetie again. damn. hot hostess.

does service get any better?

Thursday

today, i did one thing that i never do. well, two things really. one, i left work a whole hour early. the second thing was the bigger thing: i came home and took a bath!
last night after my massage, my masseuse recommended that i take baths with bath salts....for my aching calf muscles. she is not the first person to tell me this, but for some reason, she was the one who actually got me to take the advice. so, on the way home early from work, i stopped in and bought some bath salts specifically for healing muscle aches. after doing some cleaning, laundry, etc..i started the bath. mind you, i am not a big fan of baths. maybe because i don’t have a tub like Trinity, but still....i have just never really been a bath kind of girl. also, my bathtub is not one that is real motivating to go soak in. it’s old --- my dwelling, while very cozy and comforting, is old and the bathtub is just not something i fantasize about ---know what i mean? Well, i put the bath salts in and soaked and it was quiet and it smelled good...eucalyptus with somethin’ else. not only was it great to soak, it was wonderful to just be still and quiet. ...
i have not felt “right” for about the past 7 days and i can’t quite figure it out. and then today, i was just downright cranky and grumpy. my body has not felt right and that is hard for me to accept and have patience with. i had a little of the sinus thing that has been everywhere and my body has been sore and slow and my running hasbeen much less that i would like. i feel pretty in tune to my body so when there are times when i don’t feel right, it affects me quite a bit.
and then of course, it can’t all be physical. there are other things going on in my mind that have been taking space. in some ways, i feel like i just need a break. i feel maybe a bit burnt out on my life as it is...the job, the living space, the neighborhood, the city, the things that make up my days....i wish i could take a month off and just go somewhere else or a few places and then come back. maybe i just need more balance in my life? that could be it too. i’m just sort of rambling here....

A line comes to me from “The Great Gatsby” (one of the best books ever written, in my opinion)

“There are on the pursued, the pursuing, the busy & the tired”

whenever i feel this way and share about it, i tend to feel guity...as though i may come across as not being grateful and appreciative of my life. is that strange? i do feel grateful and very appreciative of my life and actually, my life is good. what is strange is that i do spend quite a bit of time alone, but lately i feel as though that time has not been high in quality. that, i know i can change. and will.

this has been a kinda weird post, for me. it’s more of a true journal entry.

thanks for listening.

what's in your salad?

though i don’t eat nearly enough of them, i love salads. and one of the coolest things, i find, is to notice and watch what others put into their salads. I mean, people who are my friends, people i care about. Not just any random person. I like seeing how they create their salad at the salad bar. In my opinion, Whole Foods has the best salad bar ever created. And here is what I put in mine pretty much all the time:

spinach
fancy lettuce sans radicchio
corn**
a few cherry tomatoes
broccoli
carrots
pulled chicken
feta cheese

dressing: some mediterrean vinagrette.

YUMMY!

what’s in yours?

**i LOVE corn on my salad!

an important lesson about eating out

the other night, i had an appointment. just before i went in to appointment, i was going back and forth in my head trying to decide whether to go out to eat afterwards or come home and cook.

i decided to go out to a place where i really like their fish-n-chips. and they have good beer which i was in the mood for as well.

so,i get to the place and sit at the comfortable wooden bar, order my beer and look at the menu even though i already know what i want....

as i peruse the items, i see they have some pastas that sound good and healthy ...and of course with all the running, i need carbs....so, instead of the more greasy/fattening fish-n-chips, i order what i think will be a decent plate of bowtie pasta with some kind of tomato sauce.

i began eating it and let me tell you, it was such a major disappointment! it was almost tasteless. i was sooo bummed.

bummed beacause i was looking forward to eating out....

as i sat there, eating my less than mediocre pasta, i thought to myself, "lesson: go for the freakin' grease. get what you want."

...now i know why i often order the same things when i go to the same restaurants over and over. it's not that i am oppossed to trying new things; i just like what i like and when you looks forward to it, a mediocre or bad meal just sucks.

a bit about your hostess

i don’t own a digital camera

i have approximately 15 pairs of tennis shoes

i don’t understand the need to climb mt everest and such places

i have no tattooes and would never get any

i’ve never had a manicure or pedicure

i stole a bottle of peach schnapps when i was 17, got drunk with 2 boys who were my best friends and fell into the San Leandro Marina.

i’m a pro at Galaga, Pac-Man, Centipede, and Pinball games

i would be afraid to go scuba diving

i wanted and possible secretly still do want to be either an FBI agent, CIA agent or Detective

i love going to a nice spa for massage

i miss the water (landlocked over here in GA)

sometimes, i think i want to move to a 3rd world country

i LOVE rollercoasters, water balloon tosses, & pillow fights

i did very poorly on SAT

friends snorted cocaine in front of me in high school while i declined

i often feel like i don’t belong anywhere

i’m afraid to die

i want to be crermated

i aim to be grateful everyday for all i am and all i have

I can do a headstand, cartwheel and roundoff

i’m not a very good swimmer

i am mostly bored by shopping of any kind, except probably running shoes!

i often flirt with waitresses

i’m moody

right now my life mainly consists of working, running & reading

i love a good cosmopolitan

i love big, clean bathrooms
i love candles but can only seem to purchase 2 at a time

i don’t enjoy walking

my dream is to design my own house

i’ve dated someone who was once a stripper

i’ve had yucky coffee in Abilene, TX

i believe in a higher power/spiritual guidance

i loved going to church as a child, mostly because of the gathering aspect

i loved a boy, once

i don’t like it when people talk because they are uncomfortable with silence

i think i was a monk in a past life

i don’t know what to believe about this life -- afterwards

i don’t know how to drive a stickshift

i love to stand up, put my head back, extend my arms and TWIRL...


Cheers!