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Oh deer

It's 99 days until the race for the cure.

This morning it was cool and sunny and I went for a run. (Run/walk. Ralk? Wun?)

I was going around a bend in the road, uphill of course, and there were wooded areas on both sides of the road. I normally take at least one earpiece out of my iPod so that a car coming around the blind curve doesn't make me CarlyMush.

It's a good thing I did, because I heard a crashing in the woods about 10 feet ahead of me, which was a little warning. Otherwise, when the deer burst out of those trees, leaping across the road to the other side, I really would have had a heart attack.

At least bambi missed me. How freaking embarrassing would it be to go fill THAT out in an ER report? "Uh, yeah. I got hit by a deer."

Legs

Listen. Really. Quit screaming. No one can hear you but me, and I don't care.

Ass is finally in gear so if you think I'm going to let you off the hook you're crazy. I know Arms are just sort of flopping around and I really don't get WHAT is going on with Lungs, they seem to show up to work only once in a while.

Heart has been pretty good but maybe the surgery drove home the point that I'm not kidding. It's been a couple of years (3?) with no problems so I don't think we'll have more trouble in that area.

SO, in short(s), keep moving.

Latest distraction

Dinner by design

I'm going to do mahi-mahi, hens, salmon, bbq chicken, & pesto pasta.

See Carly Run

Today I registered for the 2007 Komen Northeastern New York Race for the Cure. Same park/ route (same motherfucking hill right at the start) but October 6, it better not be 90* with a thousand percent humidity.

Today I ran like crap. Coincidence? I think not.

Its definitely the thought that counts

Yesterday I was in the weeds - way behind from the 2nd item on my long list forward.

I came home to find that my son had made my bed, and folded all of the clothes I'd strewn all over, (I was thinking summer, then finding out it was FREEZING, and running home to change, etc).

He left a note - "you do stuff for me, I do stuff you" (sic)

(Honey, I'd rather have you cremate me, then take a canoe ride some beautiful summer morning to scatter my ashes over a scenic little lake.)

Dear birds

You nasty little wormsuckers. Did the skunks put you up to this? I can't have a full night's sleep in my OWN HOME with the windows open without waking up at 4:30 a.m. ??

I thought it was bad when Pepe' would walk by every night last summer around midnight, because my room would fill with the whiff of him, whether or not he was annoyed, and then Mr. Carly and I would have the skunk argument (close the windows! no, he's gone, let's get the smell out!)

Do I really need to be awakened by the sound of your incessant tweedling? Listen I was having a GOOD dream this morning. Can you wrap your little bird brain around that? I mean, I know it would fit in a thimble and all but.... dammit.

Oh and tell Rabbit that I'm going to kick his ass too if he doesn't stop eating all my plants. I see the tiny little stems sheared off by his teeth much longer, and I'm googling hasenpfeffer recipes. I'm so not kidding.

Freaks of the day

1. Paul Rubens, aka Pee-wee. Future Pee-wee movies?
He hopes to usher two of his Pee-wee-centered screenplays into production soon. One follows the bow-tied protagonist and his old “Playhouse” pals on a road-trip adventure. The other, which Reubens describes as “the dark Pee-wee movie,” explores how Pee-wee deals with Hollywood and the trappings of fame.

These are still the funniest sneakers I've ever seen.

2. The dude with the alligator in his basement.... one heck of a potential blind date if I say so myself... thanks Tay.

3. The person* who invented "tag day" also known as "fuck up traffic for miles by standing in the road so that you (through guilt) convince people to 'buy' a small worthless piece of paper to support t-ball, soccer, or pee wee (heh) football". *Ass.

Honorable mention to the woman who complimented me on my hair (new highlights) and then asked "Did you just have them done today?" (It was 8:07 a.m. ...so, no.)

Additional honorable mention to Shop Dungarees. Our IM conversation went something like this today:

• talk about running and how far I run around my park, with me giving him the address and us using Google maps to both look at it while I tell him which roads are hills, etc. and showing where it is in relation to my house
• him telling me he could drive to my house within 8 hours
• me saying "sure, Mr. Carly will be asleep by the time you get here"
• him threatening to actually do it just to videotape my reaction
• me laughing nervously. Hi, John.... if he's really doing this shit he's more than halfway here... of course I did mention that I have a wireless network and he could dial in to work from here... whatever...
  

More on the people I share a building with

Yesterday I was walking in to my office building behind a woman who had a lovely designer purse over her left shoulder.

In her right hand, she was carrying a very large, bright yellow cordless Stanley power drill. Matter of factly holding it down by her hip, like one might stroll around carrying a small pistol. Casual, sort of. Like yes, hey, I'm secure in my right to keep and bear power tools so I don't neeeeed no steeeenking tote bag.

Of COURSE she got on my elevator, and I employed the "I don't see you" technique I practiced in Manhattan.

As Johnny said, "Someone's gonna get screwed today".

Random thoughts

It's hard to make chicken caesar salad if you go to the store and buy lettuce, dressing, bread, snacks for school, yogurt, cereal, spaghetti, laundry detergent, orange juice, milk, and toilet paper. Where's the chicken in that list? Exactly, dammit.

Suzy and I gave my father "The Girls Next Door, Season 1" for Father's day. He seemed very happy, my mother less so.

I am going to shoot 130 golfers this week. With my camera. And print on the site, and have them ready for lunch. Lunch will be 130 gulps of wine.

Why are there so many chef contests on now? Top Chef, Next Food Network Star, Hell's kitchen.... why am I hooked on them all?

(Side note: when I am pregnant, (which I am NOT) I can watch cooking shows for hours on end. I get horrible morning sickness and can't EAT anything but I love to watch people make pretty food that I don't have to smell. That's one of my quirks.)

If I'm so tired why can't I SLEEEEEP????

Stellar Service award Number Two

I was in the mall last night buying cards at a Hallmark store. If you've known me for long enough, you know that the disconnect between a fancy expensive card saying "I love you for everything you are and everything you do"... and, well, reality... makes me want to remove my own ribs one by one with a tarnished butter knife.

To top it off, at the register there were white Lindor truffles. Yummy. I know, wax and sugar. Whatever. I like them so I reached down to take two, and my fingertips registered an alarm that was briefly ignored in the chaos of handing over my cards, debit card, etc.

The candies were wet. As soon as that clicked in I said to the store clerk, "Um... these are all wet."

He didn't even bother to shrug, replying "Yeah, some lady spilled her ice tea all over them."

Oh. Kay.

I pushed them aside and said "well, obviously I'm not going to buy them then."

You would have thought I said that in Latin or something... the look I got... oy...

Bitch of the day

Today's complaint is as follows:

The person who empties the trash at my office fails at a very simple task. This, in many ways, shows what is wrong with our world today.

I'm not talking about the uber-lazy person who empties my personal garbage can (without replacing the plastic bag, :::gag:::) and puts it back in a completely different place. I mean, I know you picked it up ten whole seconds ago, but honest to god. Put it back where you got it. Not in front of the desk drawers. My cubicle is tiny.

I AM talking about the person who empties the garbage in the women's restroom*.

Am I bashing janitors? Not really, but this person puts a clean (?) bag into the garbage can in such a way that :
A) it is not fully open and
B) it is also stretched tight across the top of the receptacle, creating a sealed air pocket beneath which cannot be breached. You can't throw more than three damn paper towels into it, without whatever you're trying to discard practically bouncing back at you. I mean, it' s almost a talent to do it that way.

Why does it matter?

• the person is doing a crappy job
• they don't care
• their manager either doesn't notice, or doesn't care
• they get paid anyway

This flies in the face of silly little ideas like "responsibility" and "pride in a job well done" and most importantly, "consequences". (Paris, can you hear me?)

In this country there are FAR too many people faking it, going through the motions, fucking up what they are supposed to be doing, and pretending to be productive until they can leave work and go home.

This is why my croissant with egg and cheese is cold about 50 % of the time. (Hey, I haven't had one in months. I finally had one today, and it was cold. Give me a break.)

*I won't get into how one can't actually rest there, in the restroom, between the awkward noises from other stalls and the over-the-stall- walls conversations that sometimes occur, and the overwhelming grossness that is a huge public restroom. I mean, cooties everywhere. I just couldn't figure out whether it was grammatically correct to use " ladies' " or " ladies ". So there you go. Yes, tangents are my thing today.

Running between the raindrops

She runs in a pair of shorts and an old grey men's t-shirt, extra large. She likes the pocket, because she can stick her iPod in it. Not tonight though - tonight, it's raining. She wears a baseball cap to keep the rain from plunking into her eyes.

She runs between the raindrops, feeling the coolness on her skin from the drops that do manage to catch her. She smiles, thinking about how some days she is still strangely amused by the fact that she wants to run. Who is this girl?

Alone with her thoughts - the good, and the bad. No one to interupt her as she mulls over this relationship, or that one. The bills and the homework, and the schedules, all drifting through her mind. She frowns when she sees that the driveway still has an empty space.

She runs up the hill, to that mailbox that used to seem SO far away, the one that she chased again and again and again, always secretly wondering what the owners would think, if they saw her shuffle up to it and tap it purposefully, before turning around, squaring her shoulders, and running back down the hill.

She runs her victory lap, and it is awesome.

Parting words

I love Manhattan. I really do. I told my mother that I would live there in a heartbeat if I could. I think her heart skipped a beat, in horror. She hated living there (but she lived in the Bronx when I was born. SO not the same thing.)

Several times over my short trip I found myself walking down the street (usually 5th ave, but Broadway too) thinking "Oh my god, I love it here." I really wanted to stay forever. Maybe it was the novelty of how many things there are to do in Manhattan. I want to visit all of the galleries and museums, hang out on a blanket in Central Park, go visit the Statue... so many things, so little time.

I've already started my escape fund, so that I can go back alone again. I'm SO not kidding. No one to feed/dress/pick up after? Life is good. Sitting on my bed in my hotel room in my underwear, having a drink and eating pastry from a little bakery I found down the street, while I watch a nice flat screen tv? (sorry, TMI there probably but...) that was a little slice of bliss for me.

In and around my training (yes! business travel - gotta love it) I managed to see QUITE a bit in just a few days. Here are some highlights:

• Empire State Building. We covered the wait, and the smell. But it is a great view and a damn good looking building.





• Rockefeller center... apparently Top of the Rock is "the new ESB"... better view, including the ESB AND Central Park... and appointments instead of lonnnnng waits. No ice in the summer, but of course:

(there is a nice little cafe across the street, http://www.deananddeluca.com/ where you can get an iced tea and something to nosh on to pep up, midafternoon, and shop for gourmet treats)


• You can tour NBC studios, again with a specific appointment time rather than just waiting aimlessly in line. (Note: I called ahead, the person on the phone told me there were NO more slots open on the tours that day; when I actually walked in to double check since I went up to walk around Rockefeller center anyway, I easily purchased a ticket for a tour that would start an hour later. Moron. Don't answer the phone if you don't know what you're talking about.) So anyway, the Saturday Night Live studio is a fun tour. No cameras allowed... I also volunteered along with some other woman to do the news in a mock newsroom setup for the tour. That damn teleprompter scrolls fast. (Yes, I am That Girl Who Volunteers... no one knew me - why not?)
  
• Food. FOOD! I had a phenomenal dish at Salmon River (about 40th & Madison). It was Hibachi salmon. Japanese mushrooms & eggplant and seaweed and rice noodles. It was to die for. And of course when I went to Lunella Ristorante I enjoyed that meal just as much.



• I even saw Kathy Griffin do her comedy act. What? Yes, ok, it was on Bravo and I was in my room. Whatever. I love her.
  
• Dear bitch at the starbucks attached to my Lilliputian hotel : I don't care if you don't like it that I asked for a cup of ice water along with my food and beverage I bought. Don't bitch to your pal about how "We are hydrating the people of NYC and we can't even charge for it." Yes, I heard you. That is why I made you fill the cup with water when I noticed you'd only put ice in it. I don't make the policy, your boss does. PS: I would have paid for it, if there was a charge. I was thirsty, dammit.
  
• I bought this , and this and put back this in the MoMA store. Wanted to buy at least 3 MORE.
  


• Wanna buy a bridge? I've got one.
  

That girl

It was dance recital night tonight... so I was ready, having spent a few days not yielding to oncoming traffic (OR rude people.)

I was not surprised when I told one woman "Please don't shoot over the photographer's shoulder" and she pissed and moaned about it. I mean, truly, went on and on, "I'm buying the most expensive freaking package." Yes, but you won't like it if her eyes are focused on YOUR camera, not the person doing the package, will you?

I was truly amused when I heard two people mutter "Oh, there's that girl, I remember her." "Yeah, I complained about her." Oh, you so did not, or I would know... and you're still not getting the point, are you ladies??

Mwahahaha.

But the HIGH point of the evening was a woman who was so exasperated with her teenager, she turned to me and said "This is why we should eat our young." I lost it, right there. You did NOT just actually say that. Too funny!

More NY

Yesterday afternoon I had time to tool around Manhattan before my train ride home. So I used the Gray Line bus tour (once I figured out that all you have to do to get a ticket is walk up to one of the guys holding up the poster of the bus tour route! D'oh!!) and did some sightseeing. It was gorgeous weather, by the way. I had a great lunch in Little Italy. Yum, pasta and wine. Two of my very favorite things.

During part of my touring I went to the WTC site. It's fenced in, of course, to keep people like me out of the way. There's a new building, shown here, that replaces one that fell after the two main towers, later in the evening. I thought the way that it reflected the clouds was beautiful. (They're still working on the overall site, obviously.)

I sat across the street in the cemetary/ garden behind St. Paul's chapel. It's across the street from where I took the first picture. I was there more or less to pay my respects, and I ended up thinking for a while about what it must be like to lose your soulmate, your partner, your best friend. How it must feel at times like it was someone else's life, that time so long ago, almost six years gone. Then in the blink of an eye, something happens - a rainy day or a particular song, a glimpse of someone in a crowd, or the mention of any random little favorite thing that you shared, and bam. It feels like it was only yesterday.

I thought about how my life has changed, since that day. I guess I thought along those lines because it was the same type of sunny, warm day - - with a sky so bright and beautiful it's hard to imagine that it could be any other shade of blue, ever. I thought about the relationships in my life -- the ones I still have, and the ones I don't.

I thought about the person who was my best friend on September 11th, and how I had to cut her out of my life a couple of years ago. She had been home on maternity leave on 9-11, and was reacting to things as she saw them live on tv, and telling me about them over the phone. Now we don't speak.

Things deteriorated between us over time, for various reasons, until I finally had to say "no thank you... you can keep that." You see, if someone gives you something, you can choose to keep it, or refuse to accept it. I just could not accept the disrespect and other negative things she continuously gave to me. (When I finally told her how I felt, her husband sent me an email insulting me repeatedly and twisting every part of my life around to put a negative spin on it. That's when I was 100% sure I had done the right thing.)

I thought about some of my other friendships, and how certain friends have encouraged me to follow silly little dreams like "I can run a 5K", and how those friends manage to see the very best parts of me, and encourage me to be THAT girl. (Yes, you. I love you for that. You know who you are. )

There are definitely areas of my life that are in varying degree of disarray; I don't usually blog about them for two reasons. One, this blog was started for creative writing / "happy place" purposes. Corny, but true. The other is that I don't want to put some of these things out on the internet. I mean, why do people really blog about their worst problems?? (Who doesn't have problems?? Raise your hand, so I can punch you.) Anyway, I mull them over, I try to figure out what to do, how to get out of the tangle of knots I have put myself in. Some days, I feel like I'm wandering around without a map, but I haven't given up hope just yet.

If you've ever heard of Keith Anderson, he has a haunting song about chasing your dreams, called "I'll know when I get there". It's completely different from his other "stuff". I love it because it encapsulates that feeling I carry inside, that I know exactly what I want, and I'm not really sure I can ever have it, but if I ever manage to get there, I'll know, and I'll be so damn grateful, I won't waste a moment of it.

(A more upbeat post will follow, in a day or two, with a few final shots from my touring. )

A - NY Minute

Greetings from Manhattan... home of the Empire State Building. If you take the letters of the words "Empire State Building" and rearrange them, you get "Big line - me, despair" with the letters TUT left over (for Thousands of Unsuspecting Tourists).

Last night I "called ahead to see what the wait time is" because when I bought my ticket online there was a number to do that. Sucker! He told me 15 minutes. (another anagram - butt lie, me despairing....) It was about 15 minutes before my totebag was x-rayed. BUT....

Then I waited in a line that snaked one way, then another. Every five minutes the line would lurch forward about 100 people or so. It didn't seem too bad. Then I realized that when the line left my area of sight, it was just ANOTHER line in another hallway. At last - the elevators. Which open to reveal, yes, another line. Snaking around a floor that is under reconstruction and currently looks like something any slumlord would be proud to own. The purpose of this floor seems to be to put you in front of a green screen to fake a beautiful shot of you on top of the building... which will later be offered to you for $25. (It was a crummy picture of me, so no.)

After well over 90 minutes, when my feet really effing hurt, I finally popped out at the top. Well, the gift shop at the top, of course. And then I went outside to the cool night air. Which smelled like garbage and other things I don't want to think about, on certain areas of the observation deck. Really special. Maybe I was just tired, but after a few minutes I was all "Meh.... damn... I waited so long to come up here, now I can't just leave in 5 minutes...."

It was a little bit of a bummer because I was up there alone, and there were of course couples making out everywhere. So there's that. Maybe I'll have better luck with the NBC tour tonight, if I can get in... I'm sure it's only a 10 or 15 minute wait.

Carly, out!

More news coverage of the race

Sunday, June 3, 2007

A 40-something mother of two from upstate New York* chased the leaders for a brief interval during the middle of the Freihofer's Run for Women yesterday.

The novice runner was as surprised as the media pool when she came around a turn and saw the elite field a few yards in front of her.

When asked for a comment, the Mom replied "Whaa? You woke me up... I was taking a nap... I was having the BEST dream, why did you wake me up? No, you can't have a snack. Turn the tv off and go outside."

Some of you didn't get to see all of my Chico photos - they were part of a long elaborate practical joke on a coworker. So since I now have photo editing skills I entertained myself this morning by creating the above picture. I'm sure y'all can pick me out! I did race with them, but I never got quite (ok, anywhere NEAR) this close.

If you would like to see actual, untampered photos of the race, in which I do not appear... click here: http://timesunion.com/ - there are several stories about the Freihofer's Run for Women, and a photo gallery.

*(whose son actually commented to her, "Mom, you were, uh... bigger... before you started running"...)

I did it!

It was SOOOOO hot and muggy. Where was the rain we were supposed to have????

I finished in under an hour- I noticed the time was around 52 minutes when I was approaching the finish line... and I started at the VERY back* ... so since I probably started about 5 minutes behind the lead racers, I definitely reached my goal. I did enjoy it and I will defnitely do it next year... (but I will never, ever carry a bottle of gatorade again... it made me want to puke...)

I would say I probably walked just about as much as I ran today because it was at least 85 degrees and muggy... I would get to a point where I felt TOO hot and a little sick... so I'd walk... I felt a little crummy afterward, but it was so nice to see my sister and my daughter cheering for me right near the finish line, as well as T from work who waited for me there at the end.

*(I cried, just a little, at the starting line, because I was so afraid all of the people around me were just going to take off, and little old me would be left behind. It didn't happen that way. There were a few people that I didn't see run at all. They walked. I finished ahead of about 10 people... so that was cool.)

My daughter was kind of just hanging around, but had this to offer after the race: "Man... some of these people smell."

And, I was not last.

But then, I didn't see that 81 year old lady either....




PS: congrats Mark & Holly!!!!

If you don't jump

... you'll never know if you can fly.



~Miranda Lambert
( New Strings)