Sunday, July 24, 2011

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.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

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.

Friday, July 8, 2011

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.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Some summer.

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













Sunday, July 3, 2011

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.)