Walking is so... pedestrian.

In a funny coincidence, the two tabs of my browser are currently open to these two pages:

On the left:

The Great LA Walk, a 13+ mile stroll around town (that I WISH I could do, but I'm busy running on Saturday!)




and on the right:

an article entitled You Walk Wrong from New York Magazine.

RunBlog1

Look, I added a widget! ------------------------->

Somewhere over there on the right is a new box that says "Running:" and it's a little script that keeps track of how far I've run this week/month/year and I love it! Mike has one on his Marathon Blog and I'm very excited to be just like him :)

So I still think my plan to blog my run by way of iTunes playlist is brilliant, but I forgot the part where I'm not allowed to use an iPod during official training runs with the group, and most of my runs are with the group (I'm not so self-motivated, much to my chagrin). So that's not going to work out so well.

But here's the quick version of my last two runs: Saturdays are always the official Biggest Run I've Ever Done Ever days, with the team. Last week we ran FIVE miles and I was very proud of myself for doing that. Wednesdays we have a less-official mid-week group run, and even though I tried to go to that last week even though it was canceled and embarrassed myself truly, I went back this week anyway. And it turned out to be a 40-minute run, which still sounds like a whole f'n lot to me, and it was cold out, and I still don't really know anybody, and I didn't have an interval watch yet, and I immediately lost track of the people who I was going to run with who *did* have an interval watch and...
and I ended up having an AWESOME run because the only people who were going at the initial pace I was comfortable with were the two men, and somehow the three of us ended up doing the whole thing together and it was GREAT because I could keep up with them and we ran for more than 20 minutes before I needed a walking break and we did something like 4.5ish miles in something like 40 minutes and YAY ME!! I had no idea I could do that... but being distracted by conversation and having the challenge of keeping up with the boys made it just fabulous for me and it kind of flew by. AND it was my first day wearing my new sneakers (Asics) that I got THAT DAY at Road Runner Sports after doing their Shoe Dog analyzer thing which of course I loved also.

So that's my breathless update for today, except to also tell you this:
I JUST REACHED 10% OF MY FUNDRAISING REQUIREMENT FOR THE MARATHON!!
which is both super-duper exciting and kind of scary, because of the glass-is-90%-empty perspective that likes to visit me sometimes. SUPPORT ME PLEASE!

Okloveyoubye.

Back to Life?

I have been very stressed out and very busy with a handful of things the last couple of weeks, and I think that as of today, all the pressures are either relaxed or completely dealt with... meaning maybe I can relax again too. Yay.

And I did two loads of laundry today and ran the dishwasher AND took out the trash. Banner day, no?

I still have LOTS going on, but now maybe I can settle down and focus on some of the things I need to do, instead of being overwhelmed by *all* of them. That's a very good thing.

Upcoming: My first mid-week organized run and then an unprecedented (in my whole life) EIGHT mile run on Saturday morning, ohmigod. And a show that evening in Laguna Hills. Good times ahead. By which I mean: sore calves ahead...

If security has already been breached...

then you may as well read the article about me in the first-ever Alonim newsletter!!




[...even if, let's be honest, there are a few mistakes. I am overall very happy with the profile and totally thrilled that I was chosen to be profiled. Seriously. But could I really not mention the irony of their misspelling "Brandeis", of all words? And I did send them a handful of dance-related and flattering photos of myself for this, and instead they chose a random one from facebook, cropped out a friend, and used the resulting less-flattering less-professional picture you see there. A few mistakes here and there, but still, damn cool, no?]

RunBlog0

So, I've always been interested in running a marathon (and by "always" I mean since summer of 2002 when I first read The Philosopher's Diet and then The Long Run Solution) and I've spent a lot of years thinking about doing it and saying that I will *someday* run a marathon... just not today. And during that time I've read some very inspirational and wonderful books on running and it's probably the case that until now, I've spent more cumulative time reading about running than I have actually running. And when I meet someone who tells me they have run a marathon, I'm always very interested and I think I'd be very interested in reading their stories about the experience, and it does seem that almost everyone who runs a marathon keeps a blog about it and posts endless narratives with the details of mileage and injury and hunger and hydration levels and... I find them just mind-numbingly boring, I'm truly sorry to say. This is something I *think* I want to read about, but apparently I don't actually.

So.

So here we are, at the moment in my life in which I am not just talking about running or reading about running but ACTUALLY running. And actually training for my big MARATHON... and I have a BLOG... and I do NOT want to bore you to tears with the details.

So we're going to do this instead. My runs with Team In Training are necessarily iPod-free, so I'll just say this: First Saturday = 3 miles. Second Saturday = 4 miles. Tonight, however, was my first training run sans-team, meaning it was con-iPod and instead of giving you the details of my mental state at each moment, I'm gonna tell you what songs came on while I ran:

Wednesday 11/11/09

Deror Yik'ra / 3:40 / ESTA
If I Had $1000000 / 9:19 / Barenaked Ladies
The Old Apartment / 3:22 / Barenaked Ladies
It Feels So Good / 3:49 / Sonique
We Built This City / 4:49 / Starship
Mad About You-Ian / 3:53 / Sting
An Englishman In New York / 4:27 / Sting
Long Way Down / 4:00 / Michael Penn - but I only got halfway through it...

I ran about 2.8 miles (according to the very cool runningmap.com) in a very leisurely fashion, walking sometimes, stopping to get a schedule of the dance classes at a studio I passed, etc. According to the above playlist, I was out there for about 35 minutes, which means it was slooooooow going, (which it always is when I'm alone, yet a non-trying-hard timed mile last Saturday took me about 9:45) but it wasn't meant to be fast - it was just meant to BE.

So that's my plan, for the runs I do on my own - I'm gonna give you the playlist. Fun? Fun.

HAVE I MENTIONED YET THAT THIS WHOLE THING IS A FUNDRAISER FOR THE LEUKEMIA AND LYMPHOMA SOCIETY AND I CAN'T EVEN GO ON THE RUN IF I DON'T RAISE AT LEAST $3,800, WHICH I JUST REALIZED IS $145 PER MILE?? HERE I GO OFFICIALLY RUINING MY SUPER TOP SECRET REAL IDENTITY, ALL FOR THE CAUSE: HERE IS THE LINK TO MY FUNDRAISING PAGE. NOW YOU CAN DONATE AND SUPPORT ME YAAAAAAYYYYYYY FOOOORRRRRRRR YOOOOOUUUUU! thank you so much. More on the Leukemia/fundraising aspect of this to come.

RDB's week of culcha

So, last Sunday I went to see John Irving in conversation with David Ulin at The Writer's Guild Theatre in Beverly Hills, a conversation presented by Writers Bloc. John Irving has written 13 novels; I have read 12 of them and now own the new one, signed by the man himself last Sunday.

[On Wednesday night I had drinks at the Penthouse Bar at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica, but that's a whole different kind of culture. The kind where, if it's too hot for you in front of the fire, you don't relocate to a cooler spot, you ask the waitress to open the roof for you a little bit more. Ummm, a little less. How about... there. Perfect. Thanks. I'll have a martini, please.]

Thursday night I went to see Orhan Pamuk, Nobel-prize winning Turkish novelist, in conversation with Reza Aslan, presented by ALOUD. I won tickets to see this by being the correct (first) caller when it was giveaway time on KPCC. (Have I mentioned that I win things?) I read Pamuk's book My Name Is Red when I was in Turkey in 2003.

Friday night I went to see Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz, taped in Pasadena. It was an awesome show with George Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek!) as a guest contestant, and it marked the third time I've gone to SEE a RADIO show be RECORDED. Is that weird?... or just really really dorky?

And indeed, Saturday morning I made it to the park at 7am for my second week of TRAINING TO RUN A MARATHON. Yay me. Just wanted to keep you all updated on my comings-and-goings. I know that I've just said a lot for saying nothing, but I had to do this first or I'll never be able to get out the interesting parts, like the contrast between what Irving talked about and what Pamuk talked about, or about how differently they spoke and how interesting it was to see them the same week.

[Ok, for completeness: Saturday night dinner at Nobu in Malibu. Yeee-ha!]

[Mmm, spent a couple hours in conversation on Sunday at the Literati Cafe on Wilshire on Sunday. Was recognized by someone from BCI... shit like that usually only happens in the Valley, not the City!]

I'm going to run a marathon.

No, really. I am so excited. Details to come, and of course the link to where you can donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which is who is training me to run said marathon.

I. AM. SO. EXCITED.

(In the middle of an awesome week of exciting things and I promise to tell you all about them. I just had to put this out there so that woe-is-me post wasn't on top and instead the here's-what-i'm-gonna-do-about-it post was!)

Goodnight.

I know I'm not exactly unique in this regard but...

I'd really like to lose a little bit of weight. And get really buff and have an amazing body. You know, I'd just really really like that.

I also really really like ice cream. And sleeping.

But you know, since I've been blogging about stuff I want lately and it's been showing up at my door shortly thereafter, I figured why stop at book and bag? I also really really want a personal trainer and/or nutritionist who can change my life. Or, at least, my body. Anyone want to re-make me? I promise to blog about it every step of the way, or to NOT blog about it, if you prefer, in exchange. Thanks!

(Yes, yes, yes, if we are telling the universe What We Want, we can't fail to mention BIGGEST HUGEST WANT NUMBER ONE, OR ZERO IF YOU INSIST: the love of my life. It's time, I'm ready, bring it on. Happy now? Thank you, universe.)

I have the best friends ever.

Debbie and Alexis, you rock my world. Seriously. Wow. Thank you.


This is just as cool in person (person?) as it looks online. Freaking awesome. Beyond awesome.

I love you.

The Fun Way

So, on the drive home from work today I listened to this long dry debate about "the Safeway plan" in which employees are "incentivized" to make healthy choices by basing their health insurance premiums on their Body Mass Indexes. Blah blah boring.

And then I saw this, by way of the kottke.org twitter feed:



THIS is how to incentivize people to exercise and make healthy choices. Make. Them. Fun.

OMG TALK ABOUT THINGS I MUST HAVE:

Guys, I know that this is a huge secret because I never say it on here, but my name is Erica. Ok? So for the one reader for whom my *real identity* was still a big secret, well, the secret's out. As though that one reader exists. Anyway, here's why RDB comes out from undercover:

THERE'S A SHOW IN CANADA CALLED "BEING ERICA". Why didn't anyone tell me? AND CHECK THIS OUT:



I must have it. More "Erica" merchandise at the show's website. Oh man, I want those undies... AND HOW PERFECT IS THAT BAG??????

You should really thank me...

... because I just wrote one of my most navel-gazing saying-nothing long-winded-no-content-minutia-of-my-life posts ever. And didn't "publish". Instead you get this:

Enjoyed "free museum day" in Los Angeles this weekend: went to Santa Monica Museum of Art first. Neonspecs and I had a great time with the interactive/you-get-to-take-stuff-home bits of the exhibit pictured at right[0]. Then we stopped in at the Paley Center for Media, formerly The Museum of Television & Radio, and spent a good amount of time finding "Nina"s in the Hirschfelds and marveling at the bad floor design... but I called the travertine and Laura called the architect (Richard Meier). We're such good Angelinos.

Third stop was a frustrated attempt to go to a place that claimed to be open on the phone but wasn't, so we were annoyed at them, but then they gave us free cool calendars to make up for it, so then we forgave them.
Third museum-we-actually-got-into was the Japanese American National Museum, the one I was only interested in going to because of its proximity to red-bean-buns (an pan?), which I looooooove. This museum really surprised me; we spent time in the crazy Ed Hardy-like "Glorious Excess" exhibition by Mike Shinoda (of Linkin Park), and the Japanese kokeshi folk toy exhibit, *and* the painful and moving "Common Ground" exhibit of Japanese-American history including much more detailed and intimate information and photographs from the concentration camps and barracks of Japanese internment than I'd ever seen before, not having grown up on the West Coast. And after all of it, I left with a new resolve to do something beautiful with all those goony birds (paper cranes) my friend Ian made me while he was living in Israel, after I taught him how to make them... that's a story for another time.
Thank you, Museums Free-For-All and Laura, my personal curator of cultural Los Angeles.


[0]Hello, blogspot? In "Preview", the picture appears to the right of the text, hence the text is what the text is. But when I publish, it's above and center! Nu?

I fought the law; revisited

So, remember when I went to court and my case was dismissed and it took 15 minutes and I didn't have to pay the exorbitant $265 just for making a U-turn?

Well, I just got my credit card bill and there was a charge on it for $265 and the "merchant name" was COURTS. Arrrgh. But I have this paper here in my hand that says "Cash bail exonerated", nu? Arrrgh.

Anyway, I called the court and they are sending a credit to my credit card. They say. It honestly was very easy and friendly, but man did I get a scare from that bill, after all the ogida finally over with! Hopefully the credit comes through...

Just thought I'd keep you posted :)

My money's on Alexis, if I had to put down money.

THANK YOU!!! I posted that I wanted the xkcd book and five minutes later, it showed up at my door. You're wonderful... Alexis.

Or jjd? Or Debbie?

It didn't say who sent it so I can't say a proper thank you! Was it you?

Thank you! I love you! I appreciate you! Whichever one of you... NO MORE GUESSING TELL ME NOW.

At least it doesn't say "Why I Climb Mountains"

Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we? I mean, me.

Click to embiggen.

Funny how the results of my actual name are a lot more "read dance bliss"-ish (at least, "books music social") than my blog name... although the blog name is skewed by all the meta-blog stuff (the label "online" comes from all the zillions of times this very page includes the word "links" and "post", for example). Cool anyway.