Now, where'd I put my A-game? I swear it's around here somewhere....

This essay I'm working on was going breezily enough until I got the email with the list of contributors to the volume, and suddenly it has become much, much more important to produce a solid piece of scholarship. Which is unfortunate, because I've sort of weighted my summer increasingly on the non-academic side of things, and am enjoying that very much indeed, thank you.

Okay, RG. Focus. Focus.

Rage, rage: race results

So, that mercifully night-scheduled half-marathon was last night. So fun. SO FUN. I think I may have to seek out more aggressively the nighttime races. It was, for me, just like going for a run like I always do at night, except that more people started off at the same time. Everyone wearing elaborate arrangements of glow-sticks and necklaces. And out on the course, away from the more populated start- and endpoints, it was surreal and a little psychedelic to see these disembodied glow-accoutrements bouncing along in the dark air. Fun, fun.

My goal was to finish in 100 minutes. I missed my goal by 5 minutes (dang!--I hit this wall around mile 11 and slowed down until around mile 13) (but I did run my first 7 miles in 49 minutes, which makes me happy). Still, I did come in around 40th out of a field of 1500. I was the 8th woman to finish, and placed second in my division. Of course, as you will recall, my division is now the over-40 set. So, among all those women who are not going gentle into that good night, I am going the second least gently.

I'm going on Google now to see when and where I can do this again.

Greetings from the actual world.

So last year, really, was the year that wasn't. From the time my leave started April 10 2010 to the time I started teaching again in January 2011, I spent every free minute I had at this computer drafting my book. I didn't hike, really, other than maybe a time or two with the things. I didn't ski. I didn't watch movies. (I haven't seen many movies since I had Thing 1, to be honest.) I didn't do anything. I said, "All those things will wait until I finish this @*$%S book."

This summer, I have decided that I could dribble away all the minutes of my life at this computer. So. I bought myself my first bike since I was, like, preteen. The technology has advanced since then! It has gears and shocks! And I've been riding it EVERYWHERE! Also, have been rockclimbing much. Also, will be skydiving in a couple of weeks. Also, going back to Nerudaland for one last visit before he returns from exile. And then there was the extendo-camping-hiking-fishing-mountain-to-desert-trip from which I posted photos last post.

And guess what? I'm still getting work done. I'm still productive. I'm not, you know, drafting a book or anything, and I haven't been writing every day, but certainly making good progress, working consistently (if not obsessively) on my 2nd article for the summer. And I don't think I'll hit this fall semester feeling like I got run over by a truck, for a change.

I got so focused on the checklist for a while there that I forgot to have a life.

Some summer.

Some fishing. Some hiking. Some scenery. Some olfactory-identification of the trees. Some megafauna. Some microfauna.

80 minutes.

I don't tend to run distance races, because I don't (can't) run in the morning: I'm not a morning person, never have been, and I don't do well in heat/sun (headaches, overheating). But there's this halfmarathon in two weeks that starts at 10pm. So I figured I'd do a long run tonight, and if my time was okay, I'll enter the race. It'd be fun. And cool. And dark. And I ran 10 miles in 80 tonight. Not Olympic quality, to be sure, but I'm not technically trying to qualify for the Olympics. And it was 100 degrees when I started (earlier than 10pm)(can you believe that shit?!)(I miss winter)(though I did go up to 9500 feet today and there were still several feet of snow, and loads of shorts-wearing skiers). And I didn't take water tonight, so I kept having to ask lawn-watering dudes to give me a drink and to water my steaming hot head. So anyway, about this race, I think I'm in. I could easily have gone 3 more tonight. I'll do a 12 next week, which should ready me well enough to eat the whole banana. (Is that a real expression? I may have just made that up. It sounds vaguely lewd, actually.)