Nice run in the fog and mist today. I wasn’t feeling particularly runnerlicious out there, but that didn’t matter to the guy driving the street cleaner, I guess, because he stopped when he saw me coming, leaned out of the window and said "Heeeeeyyyyyyy!", then started moving along once I had moved by him. At least he didn’t pass me. Hahahaha. It’s funny because I’m slow. :)

Anyway, not much else is going on. We are hard at work on the homestead and will be aiming to get the place on the market before March. We’ve looked at some houses and said, "you’ve gotta be shitting me," A LOT, but that is to be expected in this area.

Rob has been making fun of the cat, which is always hilarious and keeps things light in our house. Apparently the cat needs a tummy tuck and Rob has been teasing him about not having any health insurance. Rob hasn’t been running, and I’ve been teasing him about that. The circle of life continues…

Okay, so, I seem to be mostly back to normal, except for the early morning hacking. It reminds me of when I used to smoke, honestly, and of how far I’ve come since then… "then" being 15 years ago.

While I was not running, I did some new paintings, submitted work to a local juried show, and started painting with oils again. I also worked on my house and perfected the art of making chocolate chip bread in my new bread machine.

Oh, the bread machine! How I love it. I used to make my own bread all the time, by hand, but that practice
fell by the wayside once I moved to Boston, mostly because I was
working in an office again and had, you know, a life and stuff. It never occured to me to buy a bread machine, because bread is really simple to make, but my friend George ordered one too many off of woot.com, so I offered to take one off his hands.

After going to the store for the things I didn’t have on hand, like bread flour and yeast, I made a delicious mozzarella oregano bread, two loaves of chocolate chip bread, and a cheddar cheese bread that, while tasty, appears to lack cheese in a visual way. Hrm.

Rob has been eating a lot of the bread, thankfully, and I’ve given some away. I don’t know what I’d do if it was just me, many loaves of bread, and no running. That seems like a recipe for disaster.

That said, I’m going to try to run at the end of the day today. It won’t be pretty, but at least it’s a nice day – sunny and about 40F. Then, I’ll go home and eat some bread. :)

I am sick. AGAIN.

Seriously, I am pissed. And sick. Cough. Hack. Gah.

I’ve been very busy at work the last two days and haven’t been able to get away to run at lunch. But today is different. I met my deadline yesterday, attended all of my meetings, and even started work on a new project a bit early. So today I am rewarding myself with a longer run at noon. I plan to stay outside for a whole 45 minutes, even. Rock!

Things are just good, lately. I feel happy about things and like I’m doing well at my job. I also feel much more in control of my food and exercise. I’m still not working out as much as I would like (only 4x per week), but I feel good, and I know I look good because people have been commenting on that.  Truthfully, I think it’s because I bought some new clothes and have been trying to dress nicer for work.

One of my job-related goals was to try to present a more professional image in the office, and while I work in high tech, in a very casual work environment, I think that as I get older I need to dress less casually on a more consistant basis. I definitely feel the perception that while my coworkers always think of me as smart and capable, they listen better and accept my viewpoint more when I’m clad in dress pants instead of jeans. Sounds silly, but it is what I’ve noticed during the day-to-day.

Anyway, that is all that’s going on with me, really. Rob is going to try to get out and run a few miles with me this weekend, and we are going to see his new niece on Saturday, in addition to looking at some houses. I’m at my studio on Friday and Sunday. Hoping to run for an hour on one of those days. That’s it. :)

So you know how I wrote that long post yesterday about the new year, and how I was looking forward to accomplishing things, and about not letting life pass you by? Well listen up, because this is important.

Not 10 minutes after I posted, one of my coworkers told me that a former coworker of ours (from our last company) is in hospice, and has about a week to live. I knew he had cancer, and that his prognosis was not very good, but his case was one of those where he was diagnosed only a few, short months ago – maybe late October. And now it’s the beginning of January and he’s at the end of his life. Life moves fast, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure what the circumstances are around his illness, whether or not he was a smoker and for how long (he wasn’t smoking when I worked with him, that I know of), but I do know that he’s around 50 years old, with a wife and two children – one high school age and one younger child – and that it’s very sad. I also know that the primary risk factors for esophageal cancer are tobacco
use, as well as chronic acid reflux problems, and that issue often
comes from being significantly overweight, which he was.

The irony here lies in the fact that last New Year’s, his resolution was to lose some weight. He started walking, and went on the Atkins Diet, and the pounds did come off. He said he felt better, and was sleeping better, too.  Eventually he went off the diet and gained back a portion of what he lost, but when I left the company in June, he was still looking a lot better than when  we had first met, and I noticed that he was still eating a big salad every day with his lunch – a huge improvement over the fried chinese food  or sandwich w/fries lunch he had been having most days.

It’s funny, looking back on it, that I remember what this guy ate. Normally, I could care less what someone else has for lunch, unless it looks good and smells great and I want what they have instead of whatever lame thing I brought. But when my coworkers all went on Atkins and South Beach, they all used to comment on my lunch every damn day (in fact, I know I posted about it last year!) so  I guess that is why I started noticing what they ate, too.

So yeah, my coworker was making strides towards improving his quality of life, and now he’s dying. It just seems like too little, too late, you know? It breaks my heart.

I’m not saying that it’s his own fault he got cancer or anything like that. Lord, no. But I guess I am saying is that you only have one body, and one life, so you’d better take care of what you’ve got – NOW.  And you should be (I should be… I am, actually) grateful for your ability to run and do all the things in your life that you like to do, because there will come a time when you can’t do those things any longer – be it from old age, or something more sudden and surprising.

No one really knows what life has in store for them. At any given moment, your world can be turned upside down.  Life can kick your ass, and life can end in a matter of weeks, or days, or even hours, if that’s the way things play out. So make the most of it. Get out there and live a little. No, go out and live a lot. I know I will be.

Dianna had the fabulous idea to get tickets to the Ansel Adams show at the MFA yesterday, so she drove up in the morning, and that’s where we spent the afternoon.

The exhibit, which gave a fair amount of space to Adams’ early work with the Sierra Club, showed many  small, softtly focused images shot in Yosemite. These were such a contrast to Adams’ later work, and as we wandered around, packed in with a bunch of other people, I said to Dianna something like, "I wonder how many people in here actually go out into nature at all." I didn’t mean it to be smug, because my relationship with the natural world is on the small scale, and while I have made huge strides towards that life-goal of being more connected to the land, I’m certainly no John Muir.

I loved this show, and images I liked the most were the ones that were obviously shot in remote places – from mountaintops and  river-valleys, or deep in snowbanks. Just looking at those images, you could see that Adams didn’t drive there, as he did later on, with a 4 x 5 camera and tripod atop the car roof . Adams was a backpacker. Anyway, wandering through the exhibit with Dianna gave me some pause as I thought about my relationship to the woods and trails around my home, such as they are. And with that, I composed my list of things to do in the new year.

Now, these aren’t resolutions, really. Some are concrete, measurable goals, and some are just things I want to try. There aren’t any that are totally new to me, so nothing like base jumping is on the list. :)

1. Train for and complete a longer race. I’d like to do the 20K event at New Haven this fall, as well as the sweet-as-hell Tufts 10K a month later. In addition, I’d like to race more this year, starting with the 5 mile Run to Remember in March.

2. Beat my time at Danskin. This shouldn’t be too hard, now that I’m faster on the bike, and won’t be a first-timer. For me, knowing what to expect is the hardest aspect of racing. I’d like to beat my time by 10 – 15 minutes. Totally possible.

3. Spend more time on the bike. Maybe participate in a charity ride of some distance.

4. Hike some trails. Whether it’s a day-trip to Mt Monadnock, an overnight to Greylock, or some simple trekking in the Groton forest, this is the thing I am most looking forward to this year. Maybe a trip to the Long Trail, even. Muddy, but worth it.

5. Let these experiences & images change and reinvigorate my work. I am in need of a spark here, and really need to spend some time figuring this one out. I know my work is connected to the natural world – I’m just not sure how.

6. Not let life pass me by. Dianna said this, and it stuck with me all of last night and into this morning, as I write. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in work and what we think is living (i.e., shopping, cleaning the bathroom, going to the post office, and the worst – watching tv). I know this year is going to bring change, what with our plans to sell and by  a home, but I don’t want to look at  my journal and see a whole week go by without so much as a 30 minute run. Everyone has 30 minutes. And everyone has stuff to do. That’s life. But "doing stuff" isn’t living. Running, biking, spending time with your friends, making art, calling your mom, having sex with your partner – that is living. And I want to do more living in 2006.

So…. what does this week look like? Good, actually! I have spinning tonight (90-minute class), and I think my cold is abating. I’m off Friday, as I am back to my normal schedule again, post-holidays, and I’m relaxed, happy, and confident. I tell ya, this is a great way to start the year.

Happy New Year!!!!!

Rob and I barely made it to midnight, what with this cold I’ve been fighting and us being, well, old and all. But we actually had a nice NYE just staying home, with homemade Sicilian bolognese and lasagna, a little wine, and a big fleece blanket for two.

Today, still under the fog of my stupid cold, I decided to say screw it and go out for a run. I was hoping that the cold air and the sweat I was planning on working up would kick my cold to the curb, and it sort of has, as I’m feeling better since I got back.

So today’s run… Wow! The first run of the year!! … It was snow-covered, slow, and steady. I wish that I had gone a bit faster, but the snow made things a little slippery on the sidewalks, and there was still some old frozen stuff to contend with, so I had to stop and walk around misc. mounds of ice, cross over a few guardrails, switching it up between the road and the sidewalks, where passable.

Anyway, it was great. I loved every minute of it, and the 50 + minutes I was out made me feel both happy and thankful. I did get a few stares from people shovelling their walks or from passing cars, but it certainly made me smile when I got a thumbs up from some lady in a Nissan. One woman I passed asked, "starting your New Year’s Resolution today?" I confess that I beamed when I said in return, "No ma’am. I’ve been running for a while. This is just my first of the year," and kept going, out past a few bridges, into the park where I haven’t run in over a year, and back again.

So that’s it. First run – check. :)