Weekend update

I guess it's time for a weekend update. On Friday night, I drove to the city to have dinner with my boyfriend and his sister, who was visiting for the first time. We ate and ate and ate. Then we had gelato. Then we played Scrabble. The next morning, we had brunch and took a walk on the levee. The weather over the end of last week and the early weekend was unbelievable. Sunny and in the 70s. Bliss. That night, Maryelizabeth and I attended the wedding of J., whom we befriended in Latin class our sophomore year of high school. It's strange to think we've known him for 17 years. How is that possible? What the hell?! Then boy, now man, now husband, always friend. Life is crazy. He seems happy, and it was fun for Maryelizabeth and me to have a night out as each other's dates.

I got up on Sunday and headed outside for my first nine-mile run. It was no longer sunny and blissful. It was mostly grey, but it was still pretty warm. The first 4.5 miles were okay. Knowing that I'd planned the route to stop by my house to speed-pee and down some Powerade at the half-way mark was definitely psychologically helpful. My break clocked in at under two minutes, and then I hit the streets again. By about mile seven or eight, I started to seriously dissociate and it took on the out of body experience feeling. My feet were killing me. But I just kept telling myself that it was nothing and that I was not allowed to quit. So I didn't, and I spaced out to the point where I had to remind myself to watch out for cars. I could barely walk for the rest of the day, but I did it. I had a massage yesterday, and that was glorious. It felt like such a gift to my body. I asked her to spend extra time on my glutes and hips because they're wound up so tight that it's painful and I can't seem to stretch them very well, and my only complaint about the massage is that instead of doing deep tissue work with her hands like I'd hoped, she karate-chopped my butt and hips with her elbows. Other than that, it was decadent and very enjoyable.

I finished Letting Go of God, and I thought it was great. It made me laugh and think and was very moving at times. It brought me back to my childhood and my Catholic education in ways that I can't even articulate at the moment. Like Julia Sweeney, my memories of being raised Catholic and going to Catholic school are really mostly positive. I laughed and laughed at her memories and her re-exploration of the tenets of the faith and the Bible as an adult. She really did a brilliant job with this, I think. I liked it so much that I just ordered another monologue of hers called In the Family Way.

Last night, we gathered at my parents' with Thai take-out to celebrate my mom's birthday. As usual, there was much football talk. They weighed in on their opinions; my parents seem to think he did his job here and we can't begrudge him his desire to succeed somewhere else, no matter where it is; my brother's girlfriend said she doesn't care what he does but is disgusted by the way he leaves other people to clean up his messes; my little brother could do nothing but turn red, shake his head, and mutter, "Judas."

In other football news, people are so excited about the Saints that you can feel this sort of underlying hysteria boiling underneath the surface that could explode at any moment. Everyone's disappointed that we're playing in Chicago instead of in the Dome, but my little brother observed that so insane would be the experience in New Orleans that sheer mutiny might break out and maybe it's for the best that the city is not subjected to that at this time. But who knows? I fear the effect of the snow and cold on our players, but my dad said in his way that is somehow both steely and rabid, as he stabbed at his pad Thai, something like, "Do you think our guys, knowing they are playing for the Super Bowl, will be cold? They will be on fire." Awesome. (And by the way, Anonymous, did you really think I would post your rude comment about the Saints? Maybe if you'd left your name, but of course you didn't. Give me a break.)

The weather is now ass. I know I've no room to complain compared to what the rest of the country has gone through this winter and what still lies ahead, but I can't deal with the high temperature of the day being in the 30s and rain, rain, rain, rain, rain for days on end, which is what we're facing this week. It makes me unspeakably morose and yet again I wonder how my sister and Shelley can survive in the northeast without taking permanently to their beds. I was so in love with my bed this morning that I thought, "I could stay in you all day. I really could. I have never been so warm and comfortable. Flannel sheets are the world's best invention. Bed. Love. I love you, my bed. Love love love. I never want to leave you. You are my soulmate." But I got up and shivered through my cereal and bundled up and headed out. Again, I know this is faux winter to many, but it's winter to me, and I hate it.

I was so glad when Ugly Betty won the Golden Globe, and I cried when America Fererra did. I think it's great that everyone seems to be talking about what a great message this show has in terms of people, especially women, having more to offer the world than what they look like, but I wish that more people were talking about how this show is a lot more than that "message." It's really mostly just highly entertaining and completely hilarious. I saw Michael Urie, who plays Mark, who I think is my favorite character, on The View recently, and he was so delightful. (I love this photo of him and Becki Newton, who so deliciously plays Amanda, posing in character.) This is a great show, but don't be put off by the reports that it's all about some kind of sociological moral. It's also sweet and funny and over-the-top and I love it.