The joy on the other side

For the most part, I've felt pretty brave at 34. Today I marked the halfway through 34 point, so I stopped to reflect a little on this. I've been reading a lot of Anne Lamott lately, both her books and her Salon archives online, and one paragraph really stayed with me.

I think that even though I've felt pretty brave -- being on my own after four years of couplehood, getting my bike and learning to ride it, doing the triathlons -- I'm still fearful of some things. Of taking some steps.

The backstory of this passage is that Anne Lamott's dog Sadie had been attacked by a pit bull on a walk and Anne was nervous about going back out on walks after that.

So I took Sadie for a walk, right past the house where the pit bull lives. What else was I going to do -- get her a treadmill? No, she's a tracker. She lives to walk along sniffing things. And, anyway, you just can't stay holed up. You've only got this one mongrel life, and you don't want to spend it hiding indoors; pretty soon the menace is everywhere and you're left worrying about what's going to rise up out of the basement. You have to wear down the fear. You can't kite yourself up over the places you wish did not exist. You have to suit up, show up, move on through. The good news is that the joy is on the other side of the dark stretch of sidewalk. Also, you can ask someone to walk along with you, someone or something you trust. So I decided to be that person for Sadie and help her take back her joy in the street.

I read that, stopped, and read it again. And then again. And I let the words really sink in.

The thing about Anne Lamott is that she is not just that person for Sadie. She has also, many times, been that person for me. Like now. Again.

This time, she's reminding me that we can't hide from what we're afraid of. And that is something that it never hurts to hear. No matter what it is that we're hiding from, no matter what we are fearing at any given time of our lives -- taking charge of our health, going for what seems like an impossible dream, putting ourselves out there in any number of ways, creativity-wise or relationship-wise or whatever -- we just have to face them -- our problems, our hang-ups, our fears. Whatever is stalling us on whatever path we're trying to take.

As Mother Superior tells Maria in The Sound of Music, "Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live." And then Maria later tells Liesl, "You can't use school to escape your problems, you have to face them!" Maria was hiding behind the convent walls, Liesl was hiding behind school, we all hide behind something. I just want to climb my own walls. Don't you want to climb yours?

I told a wise friend recently about something that was making me feel really jittery, frazzled, and self-doubting and wondered if that was a sign I should not do it or if those feelings are just part of Going Through It. As I thought she might, she said she suspected that underneath those feelings, "Some very interesting treasures are buried." Which is pretty much exactly what Anne Lamott was saying about the joy on the other side of the dark stretch of the sidewalk that we just have to walk down sometimes whether we want to or not.

Striking a balance

I spend a lot of time thinking about productivity and laziness. I wonder how much of each a life should contain. When I'm being lazy, I feel guilty about not being productive. When I'm being productive, I feel a sense of accomplishment and non-guilt for non-laziness, but it's not always a ton of fun or something that I feel gives life meaning. I find that I spend a lot of time feeling my way through this ... what I "want" to make time for vs. what I "should" make time for, and so forth.

This past weekend struck a nice balance between productivity and laziness. I want to keep a record of it, so I'll remember it the next time I find myself struggling with this. (I realize that even contemplating this is a luxury.)

Saturday morning dawned before dawn, as my mornings do these days, thanks to Zuko, who apparently can no longer sleep through the night. I was at the gym when its doors opened and set off on a swim, my first in nearly two weeks. It was difficult after such a long break from the pool, but it was nice to feel myself getting back into the rhythm of laps while a class full of people who must be training for something splashed rapidly through their drills all around me. Before going home and showering, I rushed to the farmers' market, dripping all the way. Lo! There were still eggs, so I bought two dozen, along with a basket of assorted peppers and some peaches from the very nice peach man for my mom, who loves them passionately.

My front bed had become overgrown and messy, so I spent several hours pulling weeds, hacking away at my witchhazel and lantana and ferns, and using the electric trimmer to try and get things under control. I hauled a giant pile of leaves and branches and weeds to the curb, got bitten by many mosquitoes, got scratched and covered in yard filth, and felt very satisfied in the end to have shed some blood & sweat working in my yard. My dogs had become messy themselves, so I bathed both of them, which is always a wet and wrestly experience that involves tremendous clean-up once it's all said and done. I love a clean dog, though, so it was worth it. My neighbor invited me to lunch, saying she needed a "big beer," so we went out for tomato basil soup with grilled cheese on focaccia (her) and a veggie burger with fries (me). We both had big beers.

The post-lunch afternoon brought me over to my little brother's apartment, where I planned to watch a couple of episodes of season two of True Blood ... I ended up staying for seven. We ate cheetos and baked Reese's Pieces cookies and mashed them still warm into caramel turtle ice cream. We laughed, we covered our eyes, we screamed; all of the best parts of watching this crazy show. He took a nap and came out hours later rubbing his eyes and laughing, "You're still here??" Finally I peeled myself off the couch and headed home for bed, drunk on sugar and vampires and the flaming hotness of Eric Northman. ("He's been named the hottest man in Sweden like 5 times!" my brother informed me.)

Sunday morning began in a very decadent way, as Zuko let me sleep until 6:30! It was magical. I went on a 14-mile bike ride, which was gorgeous, mostly because it was 65 degrees outside, which is downright freezing for August. Heaven! I spent the rest of the morning dusting, vacuuming, and tidying my house. If I could hire someone to do a chore for me, any chore, I would hire someone to vacuum my living room furniture. Or to shave my pets permanently bald. I love them, but their fur ... gah. Pet people, you know what I'm saying. (A dream of mine is to invest in some living room furniture off of which pet hair can be easily swept. Does such furniture exist?) This all took a very long time, but I blasted the Dr. Horrible soundtrack and then an angsty love mix by mo pie and lit a bunch of candles and everything smelled lovely and clean! I did three loads of laundry and overall got a lot of household drudgery taken care of. It won't last long, but it still felt great.

Later that afternoon, I headed back over to my brother's. We ate cheese pizza and drank Coke. Actual real Coke, which I hadn't had in years. Coke just doesn't really do it for me (thankfully), but it sure is good with cheese pizza. Wow! We watched the final 2 episodes of season two in order to be caught up for this week's new episode. There was more laughing, yelling, eye covering, and general ridiculousness. Seriously ... so much laughing. Good times.

I headed home and decided to bake some more cookies, this time from scratch. These were a bit messy (when melted chocolate is involved, along with an electric mixer, I inevitably end up with chocolate splattered from ceiling to floor, and I knocked over and spilled an entire new bottle of vanilla extract on the floor ... yay), but so, so good. I didn't bother toasting the walnuts or using sea salt and had to improvise on the double boiler issue. And I just used spoons to dole out the dough, so mine aren't perfect and cute and round like these. But they still taste mighty fine. And the recipe made a ton of cookies. And smashing Skor bars with a hammer is a great stress reducer.

Thus, to conclude, I spent a lot of time this weekend doing things I "needed" to do -- housecleaning, dog bathing, yard work, and exercising. But I also spent a lot of time doing things that were in no way "productive" -- eating junk food, watching the trashiest TV show known to man, etc. But I loved doing those things with my brother, so I definitely think it was time well spent. There are things missing from my life that I want to carve out time for: yoga, for one, because I need to both stretch and meditate more in a big way, and some kind of service to the greater good of humankind, for another. I will get to those soon, I hope.

Sometimes it's 2004 and the Garden State soundtrack is all the rage, and you are 29 and see the movie and you love it, along with a lot of other people, until everyone decides to hate it, and you listen to Frou Frou's "Let Go" a thousand times. And suddenly it's five years later, exactly, and you're 34 and you haven't listened to the song in a really long time and it reappears in your life on a mix from a good friend and it sounds somehow totally different and the same. And you fall in love with this song about letting go all over again, and you think about what you want to let go and what you want to keep, and it's like a little piece of your heart you forgot about is still there after all.

What I am coming to see this year in a new way is that our lives really are what we make of them. Most of us are lucky to be able to create the lives we want. Our lives are all different and our days are all filled with different things and different obligations and things to tend to -- jobs, classes, kids, pets, relatives, friends -- but for the most part, we can build a day like we want to, with certain hours carved out for this, and others carved out for that. It is kind of a beautiful thing when you really stop and think about it, being the architect of a day. I have really liked the days I have built for myself lately. I just want to recognize this and take a deep breath and have a moment of gratitude about it. So that is what I am doing. And now I am going to eat a cookie.

Rainy ride and recent movies

I've found that the week post-triathlon, each time, has been a bit of a downer. The other day I resolved to kick off the latter half of the week with what would hopefully be a restorative bike ride at sun-up. So off I went on my first ride since Sunday's hilly atrocity. It was a lovely morning, and the sky was brightening with the ascending sun, and I passed my old boss's house and she was out on her driveway with her dog, so we waved.

Not 5 seconds later, I noticed some water on the sidewalk ahead, which is not unusual due to sprinklers, but then I noticed sprinkles all over the lake, and I thought to myself, "Wow, they must have gotten a bigger sprinkler!" Then I realized that it was pouring down rain. Whoa! It was kind of shocking at first because I couldn't really see, but I said, "Self, eyelids are the original windshield wipers. You can make this work!" So I just started blinking rapidly and somehow kept most of the water out of my eyes. I had to slow down, obviously, but what was I going to do, pull over and just stand there holding my bike in the rain? Soon I was soaked to the skin, my shoes filled up with water, and I could feel the dirt splashing up on my seat, shorts, shirt, and even helmet from the back tire. It was kind of crazy.

I could not help but laugh; there were a ton of runners out, and everyone seemed sort of amused, shrugging at each other and smiling as we passed. The best part was how the ducks climbed out of the woodwork to take over the rapidly filling puddles, splashing and ducking their entire heads in the water and pulling them out and shaking them off and then nosediving right back in. It was a total Disney movie. The sun was still shining, so everything was kind of shiny and sparkly and lovely. Eventually I made it home, sloshing inside and realizing the entire back of my body and clothing was caked in sandy wet black dirt. Good times!

Misc.: Sometimes I make little notes to myself about things and can't remember their origin. Like, I just found one that says "Mr. Blue Sky. ELO." I really, really like this song! But where did first hear it, and what made me look it up? No memory of this whatsoever. (A little later...) I remember now! I was reading one of the trailer tournament posts at Low Resolution and heard it in the trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great movie, great song.

And now a quick recap of movies I've seen recently:

Funny People

I always enjoy seeing movies with my little brother because he laughs big and he laughs often, which makes me laugh, too. Overall, this movie is kind of strange. It's funny and depressing. I liked all of the actors, but I wasn't crazy about the characters. Leslie Mann was really good, and Eric Bana was so funny I might have been kind of in shock. It's way too long, but it's got good parts. Wow, I am a terrible movie reviewer!

500 Days of Summer

Mostly, I liked it. I liked the music, and the actors were totally winning. I was a little annoyed by the aglow in the sunshine shots, you know what I mean? But I thought the end was very true to life. And the Hall and Oates dancing scene was perfection to me.

Julie and Julia

I understand that Julie was supposed to be living a blah life, but I will never understand why they had to de-glamourize Amy Adams to such an absurd degree in this role. I guess they had to try extra hard to dim her natural radiance (I am serious), but it was so overboard that I just wanted to shake Julie by the shoulders and say, "How can you expect to be happy with hair and clothes like that?" That said, clearly Meryl Streep was beyond amazing and so delightful that the movie made me feel a little floaty. It was a fun one to see with my mom, who LOVED IT. I caught some Julia Child reruns on PBS later that week, and she really was so astonishing to watch. "And now I shall give my chicken a BUTTER MASSAGE!" I thought Meryl Streep might be playing her over the top, but it turns out that's how she really was. A movie all about Julia would have probably been better, but I understand why they set it up the way that they did and that Julie's side of the story was the whole impetus for the film, that her blog was a brilliant idea, and that the actual real-life Julie is probably a lot less dishwatery than the film version. Overall: thumbs up.

17 Again

I thought the Efron factor would be enough to make this a good movie. I was very wrong. There is nothing good about this movie. Zac was so fantastic as Link in Hairspray, but everything about Hairspray was so glorious and perfect that perhaps I overestimated his personal greatness. To beat a dead horse, I still think he'd make a better Ren McCormack than Chace Crawford.

I Love You, Man

I have loved Jason Segel since he was Nick Andopolis (scroll to 2:50), and Paul Rudd can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I liked this movie, but I didn't love it. Rashida Jones is a very natural and likable actress. The guys were very funny. Anything featuring J.K. Simmons gets a good grade from me, usually, and I also really like Andy Samberg. My affection for the movie deepened greatly when watching the special features, which were hilarious and totally worth watching. Without those, this movie mainly made me want to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall so I could see Paul Rudd as Kunu and Jason Segel as Peepyopee.

The Class

Well. This movie is way better than any of those others. It is in a (pardon me) class by itself. Every moment is brutally and beautifully authentic, every actor is pitch perfect, from the adults to the children, it is like watching a documentary, it is like watching real life, and I loved it. The behind the scenes features about the backstory and creation of the film were fascinating. I cannot stop thinking about this movie. It is something special.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day:

This is a movie I just keep re-watching over and over again. Thanks to Kymm for passing along this (spoilery) review, which wonderfully captures the greatness of the film and describes perfectly the joy and love it causes to surge through one's heart. (The clip to one of my favorite scenes is broken in the review, so try this one, if interested ... it's not super quality, but it's the only clip I could find.) Love, love, love. I could not love this movie more. It is pure magic.)

Triathlon report

The fourth and final triathlon of the series was not a triathlon after all. More on that in a bit.

After a long day of visiting with family and traveling to New Orleans, I was sound asleep by 10 the night before the triathlon, only to be awakened by the boys next-door having an impromptu patio concert a little past midnight. Ah, college boys and their guitars. I was able to get back to sleep, out of which I was jolted by the strummy strummy ringtone of the 3:30 cell phone alarm. Somehow I was alert enough to make a peanut butter sandwich and get all of my things together. My friends picked me up at 4:30, and we hit the road in the darkness, listening to an excellent mix CD with songs like "Fergalicious" and "Bootylicious" and trying to put together coherent sentences for conversation.

The setting for the event was very woodsy. So woodsy that when we stepped out of the car two hours later, the mosquitoes immediately attacked. I'm not sure what it is with me and bug bites before a race, but there you go. I sprayed on a bunch of sunscreen to try to kill the itchy, burning sensation overtaking my skin. As we unloaded our bags and made our way to the transition area to set up and pick up our packets and what have you, it was announced that the swimming leg of the triathlon had been canceled because a boater had gone missing the night before in another part of the lake. We all just kind of stood there kind of dumbsquizzled, not sure what to do, wearing our swimsuits and flip flops and holding goggles in one hand and swim caps in another. Of course we were sad about the boater but sort of also regrouping as we shifted our focus as to how the event would now go. Flip flops were exchanged for sneakers as they switched the swim to a run, and I changed out of my swimsuit into my very stylish biking/running ensemble, and our transition spots were rearranged to accommodate the fact that we no longer needed to dry off or put on shoes after swimming, and so forth.

We set out for the run, and I deliberately took it pretty easy. The fact that I finished two miles in 19 minutes goes to show me that it was not a full two miles, as that pace is physically impossible for me even at a full sprint, which I most certainly was not doing. But fine by me. Because the bike route -- sweet heavens above. It was super hilly. Way hillier than anything I have ever done before. The first one appeared out of nowhere and might as well have been Mt. Kilimanjaro for how intimidated I was by it. My mouth dropped open and I said aloud, "You have GOT to be kidding me." I tried to shift gears to make it easier to pedal, but that just made me feel like I wasn't getting anywhere. This happened hill after hill after hill. One of them was an overpass over the interstate, which was kind of scary in addition to being impossible to climb, and I felt really sorry for anyone who might have a fear of heights. The best part of the bike ride was a little patch of road where the trees branched out over it, almost completely shading it except for little bursts of sunlight. It was so pretty, honestly, that I almost forgot how pissed off I was and how much I was hating life. The hills were so tough that I went to a really dark place in the last mile or so of the biking, the depth to which I had not sunk since some of my longer training runs (10 miles, 11 miles) during half-marathon training in 2007, during which I felt like I might black out due to the force with which I hated the sport and the entire universe with my entire being. That is how I started to feel on this bike ride. My knees began to ache. I started getting very slow and wobbly. I started worrying about running out of gatorade. I was miserable. I have no idea how long it took me to finish the 15 miles. Dear Lord, just get me off this bike, I will run a thousand miles. Luckily I only had to run two. Which were fine, especially when volunteers poured cups of water all over my head, soaking my shirt to the gills.

A note on the hills: I couldn't decide once it was all said and done if I would have preferred to know in advance about the hills. What would have been the point, except to mentally prepare? It's not like there are a bunch of hills around here that I could train on. It just kind of seems like the race website would have said something about it so people who weren't ready for them could make a fair evaluation of whether or not to sign up. One of my friends wasn't confident on her brand new bike with going downhill, which was pretty steep at times, so she got off her bike and ran it on all the downhills, which was kind of a crazy experience, I'm sure. Oh, well. What's done is done and we all survived.

Once we were done, we stood around hydrating and stretching and eating some nice homemade post-race food (perk of a fairly small event) like brownies and gingerbread and cinnamon rolls (healthy!) ... the race runner announced some time later that the last racer was on her way in, and so we all gathered around to cheer for her as she crossed the finish line and got the medal around her neck. She was 60-something and fought hard to finish. It was awesome.

It was a fun road trip and a very hot and exhausting but good race day under the circumstances. I would have liked to do the open water swim instead of two runs, but I understand that the right call was made on that. I thought this might be it for me as far as triathlons go for the year, but this morning I woke up and signed up for another one in a few weeks. They're just fun, and I'm not ready to be done yet.

10 things

(1) I went to a yoga class at the unholy time of 5:45 a.m. After several days in a row of running, biking, or swimming, I needed a change. We warmed up with some breathing and eye exercises ... like look to the right, look to the left, look to the right, etc., and I thought, "This class is gonna be a breeze!" Wrong. So wrong. The teacher is a good friend of mine, almost like a sister, and I marveled at both her excellent teaching skills and her poses, many of which I could not even begin to complete. It's been a long time since I did yoga, sure, but I don't know that the day will ever come when I can actually do the simple poses of plank (have trouble straightening my back) and cobra (way too much lower back crunching) and upward dog (ditto) properly, and bow pose? I am so sure. Also, I fell over repeatedly in warrior three. I find that I hate any stretch or pose that arches the lower back in a crunching manner rather than rounding it in a lovely standing forward bend or child's pose kind of way. It just does not seem good for a lower back to be crunched in that way. Maybe I am missing something, but it always hurts and is monstrously unpleasant. I think my favorite pose of the whole class was bending over in cow face pose because I am a huge fan of anything that (a) rounds the back and (b) stretches and opens up the old hips, which I find notoriously hard to stretch effectively. (Other favorite hip poses? The pigeon, a.k.a. heaven, and the ridiculously but aptly named happy baby pose.) I hope to spend more time doing deep stretching and yoga in the coming weeks and months ... once I wrap up the next (and final, for a while, anyway) triathlon. I think my body really needs it.

(2) I watched 8 episodes of True Blood in two days. After watching the first four season one episodes a while back and never being able to rent the next discs because they are always checked out, I finally scored the last few discs and marathoned them. This show -- this show. It is so totally gross and ridiculous but so entertaining. I have to look away and fast forward sometimes through some of the really graphic stuff because I am a squeamish delicate flower, but overall, I enjoyed it so much and deem it perfect summer fare.

(3) I've been reading Shelf Discovery every night before bed and simultaneously loving every word and feeling deeply jealous that I didn't think to, with a little help from my friends, write this book myself! But no matter. I'm just glad it got written because it's hilarious and ultimately moving to read someone else's childhood impressions of Meg and Calvin and Charles Wallace and Claudia and Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Vicky and Adam and Harriet and Sally J. Freedman and all of the others. It's just an awesome walk down memory lane. (Here's how you can buy it from your friendly neighborhood independent bookstore.)

(4) Speaking of independent bookstores, check out this great interview by my old friend Melissa. I am very inspired by seeing her so totally in her element and doing what she was obviously meant to do.

(5) And speaking of memory lane, I've been enjoying a few really nice John Hughes tributes, including one by Molly Ringwald in the NYT and a SUCH a lovely story by a woman who was pen pals with Hughes when she was young.

(6) Recently I bought two new prints for my walls. Where I will hang these I do not know, and they still sit in their mailing tubes. But I'm just glad they're in my house because I like them. I would sort of like to rebuild my living space from the ground up. What is stopping me? Nothing!

(7) I made this zucchini bread with a ton of zucchini from the farmers' market that I needed to use up, and it was delicious, even though I forgot to add the vanilla. (Found via Tastespotting, my very favorite place to hunt for recipes and look at beautiful food.)

(8) I am kind of still loving summer in general. Lunches and dinners with friends, getting up early to run with Zuko or exercise, the farmers' market, visits to the dog park (where someone pointed out of Daisy, "She's got issues," which I frankly found a bit snotty and rude), Sunday brunch and gelato in New Orleans, and a night of excellent community theater ("I knew every word of every song growing up," my mom said as we listened to the soundtrack to The King and I on the way home).

(9) This picture makes me really happy, as does the Chuck Comic-Con panel, which is definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the show and have 34 minutes to spare. They are 34 minutes of pure delight.

(10) And finally, I leave you with this. I never knew how much I missed Tim Canterbury until now. O Timmy! My Timmy!

Taking stock

So some things happened 10 years ago this summer.

HOME

In June of 1999, I moved back to my hometown after a year away teaching high school. A crazy, difficult, bizarre, sometimes wonderful and thrilling year. I moved in with two girlfriends in a rent house. We had cats and dogs and fun times. This home was in the same neighborhood where I live now. In fact, other than childhood and the year away and the summers away, I have pretty much always lived in or adjacent to this neighborhood ... from my college apartment to a long housesitting gig to the two rent houses I lived in before buying this one. Anyway. This is my hood. I like it. This weekend, I went on a bike ride around the lakes and hot air balloons appeared over my head, drifting through the sky and reflecting on the water. Bright bursts of color. Runners and bikers going around with their mouths wide open, huge smiles, actual "ooohs" and "ahhhhs!" as the sun rose. It was one of the finest neighborhood moments ever and reminded me of how glad I am that I live here.

DOG

In July of 1999, I got a dog. My first ever very own dog. (Here is a tiny picture of her tiny self the day I brought her home.) I got her at the animal shelter. Someone I knew from grade school had found her and was dropping her off, so I just took her in the driveway of the place before she even brought her in to process her. I just knew right away that I loved her. She was really shy, so I named her Daisy. She was about six months old at the time. She is still here and still kicking. I fell really in love with her, and she is still my favorite. Don't tell the others. 10 years ago, I did not anticipate that a couple of years later I'd have another dog. And then a cat. And then another cat. (Sigh.) I love them all, but she came first, and I cannot believe we have been together 10 years. 10 years! Daisy. Wow.

JOB

Also in July of 1999, I got a job. It sort of came out of the blue. It seemed like a good fit for me, and the people seemed nice. It still is, mostly, and they still are. Sometimes I wonder if 10 years is too long to have the same job. Maybe it is. Maybe I will not have this job forever. But I still mostly quite love working there, especially the people I work with, and feel luckier than ever to do so.

ONLINE JOURNAL

10 years ago today, I posted a journal entry online. I had no idea what I was doing. I wrote an entry about soulmates. This is very embarrassing. But I was 24 years old. And I definitely still believed in soulmates back then. A few major relationships later, I'm not sure I do anymore. I don't mean that in a down on relationships kind of way, just in a "I'm 10 years older and the word 'soulmates' sounds a little too hocus pocus woo-woo love for me" way. And that's okay.

Four years ago, I reminisced about starting my online journal and went through a pretty thorough account of the whole history, so I won't rehash all of that today.

I'm not sure how I feel about this site these days. Every time someone in my life tells me that they've come across it, I feel mortified, like it's a punch in the stomach, and I want to pull the whole thing forever. But then ... I don't know. I also feel sort of ready to tell my family about it. They are my faves, you know? How can I have done this all this time and not told them? That's just kind of weird. My mom and I saw Julie and Julia, so at least now I know she knows what a blog is. Hi, Mom! This is my blog. (I am writing that to encourage myself to tell them.) Mostly I just don't want them to think I'm a big weirdo.

Only 2004-present is currently online. 1999-2002 was a bit too cringeworthy and too focused on long-past relationships to keep drifting about in cyberspace, and most of 2003 feels a bit too raw, looking back. I think I'm comfortable with what's up now. As Kymm told me when I recently considered just pulling the whole thing, "Don't! Stay strong! Own yourself!" She also pointed out that in 2009, it's a lot more common for part of one's life to be aired online than it was back in 1999. And I get that. Still, I feel a bit weird about it, even now. Maybe it is just time to let that go and stop feeling weird or embarrassed about it. I mean, I'm 34 and I've been doing it for 10 years. That's almost a third of my life, for Pete's sake. I like doing it, and I love the people I've met through it, I like having this record of my life that is really easy to access when I want to remember what I was doing on a certain day, or how I spent a certain New Year's Eve, or what my favorite books from a certain year were, or what my birthday was like that year, or what I ate at that restaurant, or how I mended this or that year's broken heart.

TAKING STOCK

I guess that's about it for tonight. 10 years ago this summer, my life changed in a lot of ways. It's changed in plenty of other ways since. Right now, I feel good about where I am. This weekend, I went to the farmers' market, and I went to a movie with my mom, and I got a massage, and I went on a run with Zuko and on a long bike ride, and I went to a movie with my brother and my friend B., and I ate really good shrimp and corn soup. This morning, I went swimming, and then I went to work, and the tree man came to trim my crape myrtles, and it rained, and I made homemade zucchini walnut bread, and now I'm watching a little True Blood. Life is good, and I am content, maybe even happy.

Triathlon report

About 2 months ago, I did the swimming leg (350 meters) of a triathlon relay team and was hooked. About four weeks later, I did another triathlon, the whole thing that time, all three legs (250 meter swim, 10 mile bike, 2 mile run). I'd only had a bike for about a week and a half. I just kind of threw myself into the whole thing. Luckily, I was able to kind of phase myself in by starting with a relay and then with a triathlon with relatively short distances.

About four more weeks went by, and it was time for the latest event (350 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 2 mile run). While not following any specific training schedule, I tried to either swim, bike, or run almost every day. This has been surprisingly enjoyable.

And now to recap the day!

I set my alarm for 5, but Zuko helpfully woke me up long before that. I ate a piece of toast with peanut butter on it and just kind of lolled around. Eventually I got dressed and loaded my bike onto my cursed trunk rack and headed out to the site. It was still dusk, and there was already a long line for chips. I set up my transition area and headed to the line, where I stood in the wet grass with Tevas on my feet, which were immediately swarmed with fire ants. The welts started swelling immediately, as they do, and I told myself not to scratch them and that I would be worried about far worse soon enough. Not the greatest start to the experience, but whatever! Be tough, I told myself, over and over and over. I got my chip and my number written on my arms and legs with a big black marker by a volunteer, and eventually it was time to line up by the pool.

I learned during the last two triathlons that it is dumb to put your cap and goggles on until right before you get into the pool because it's a very long wait and those things are tight. I self-seeded myself with the 8:30 swimmers and waited and waited and waited. People, this is possibly the least fun part of the day. It's exciting to huddle there, sort of, in your suits as the super fast swimmers begin, but eventually it just gets boring. I stood on the bleachers to watch for a little while and finally it was my turn to hop in. There was no dilly-dallying, as you step on the mat to activate your chip and plunge right in. I found myself passing folks fairly easily which made me feel strong. I knew that the swimming leg would be my best and that I like swimming more than the other two events so I vowed to enjoy it. And I did! I didn't even hesitate to pass people out of fear of being rude or whatever, which I was a little more worried about my first two times around. I did have to switch to breast stroke at some point because I got very tuckered out doing freestyle, but luckily that was my best stroke as a child and there are some things the body just doesn't forget. So I finished and slipped on the little ladder on the way out but the volunteer dudes just grabbed my arms and hauled me out, at which point I tore off my goggles so I could see and my swim cap so my brain could breathe again and took off in bare feet for transition. The volunteers were super cheery, as usual, which helps. (I did the swim in 7:43, an improvement of about 2 minutes over my time in my first triathlon 2 months ago, which is exciting for me! I think if I really worked on sprinting during training instead of just swimming at a semi-leisurely and steady pace I could improve even more.)

T1 (or Transition 1, the time between swimming and biking) is typically the longest, and I ended up taking almost 3 minutes to semi-dry my feet off with a grass-covered towel, put my shoes and socks on, get very tangled up in my shirt as I tried to pull it over a still very wet top half of me, put my helmet on, and grab my wee packet of goo and shove it in my cleavage, a tip I learned from a fellow racer at our pre-race pasta dinner the previous evening (my only experience with goo was during the half-marathon, and I felt it definitely helped me through those last couple of miles), run my bike to the mounting line, hop on, and go.

(Sidebar: the weekend before the race, I went with a group of fellow racers on a practice ride on the race route, where I'd never ridden before. It was way more difficult than my other rides for these reasons: (1) way more windy (2) no shade (3) super fast cars and trucks whizzing by in a terrifying manner and (4) no stopping or slowing down for curves, thus nonstop pedaling the entire time. It took me a solid 60 minutes to finish the training ride, and I was not exactly tickled pink about doing it all over again during the triathlon.)

So the biking leg began, and it wasn't awful. I took comfort in the fact that I'd actually bought a little bag with a spare tube, tools, air can, etc. and attached it to my seat in case I got a flat – there would be volunteers to assist with such things, but only if you had your own gear and tools for it. I knew I would feel like a major chump if I got a flat but had nothing to change it with. So this eased my mind. A few bikes broke down not long into the route, and all I felt I could do was holler "you all right?" and if the answer was affirmative, keep going. What in the hell was I going to do to help, seriously? There were scores of volunteers, and reports after the race indicated they'd been able to help. One biker on a sensational road bike had to pull over because she dropped her water bottle, previously one of my great fears. Not that I was glad to see these difficulties, but it did make feel like less of a spaz, you know? So I rode and rode and rode and reached the dreaded 180-degree turn around point, at which I slowed to a near stop all the while yelling to the traffic building up at my rear, "Sorry people behind me, sorry people behind me, sorry people behind me!" It didn't take me all that long in actuality, but in my mind I was holding up the entire race. But made it through that, phew. Then I ran over the dead coil of a rather giant snake, which was both (1) bumpy and (2) kind of gross! Sometimes I would find myself starting to daydream and not pedaling as fast as I could, and I'd say, "Self, this ain't a joyride, this is a race!" I said this to myself many, many times. At 10 miles, I squirted some delicious, snotty goo into my mouth and told myself it was a melted caramel. Somehow this made it more palatable. It got all over my hand so I just started licking my filthy hand. It made me feel kind of nasty and tough, but in a good way! Finally it was 12 miles …a quick glance at my watch showed me I'd done it about six minutes faster than I had in my training ride, which thrilled me to no end, frankly, even though it's by no means a "fast" time. Time to dismount. Holy hell!

(Sidebar word to the wise: If you are training for a triathlon, please try to get in some workouts where you run after biking. This has been the most difficult part of the races for me by far. Even if you don't have to run very far, there is something strange that happens to your legs after you dismount your bike, and that something is that they stop working. At least momentarily. I let out a very loud "JESUS," when I hopped off my bike to run it into the transition area. I heard laughter from the crowd of volunteers – not a mean-spirited laughter, but a supportive laughter of those who knew all too well what I was feeling. It is very uncomfortable and unpleasant. The only times I have ever run after biking are the two triathlons I've done, and that is just kind of stupid of me. Getting out the gate on the run faster and better would have improved my not only my run time but my run experience, so I am going to have to really plug this practice if you are training.)

T2 was under a minute because all you have to do is get your bike to the rack and rip your helmet off and make your way to the running starting point … it would have been faster had my legs been fully functional, but whatever!

I took a cup of water and a cup of power ade immediately upon setting out on the run, which I think was a mistake, because I immediately got a raging side cramp. I started jogging slowly but it was so painful that I had to walk for probably a ½-mile. Bummer, but oh well. You can only do what you can do … there are some pains that you can push through and some you can't. I walked as fast as I could and the cramp subsided somewhat but not all the way. I decided to just jog anyway and that it was a bearable pain at this point. About one mile in, I saw a dear old childhood friend who was volunteering with his young son, and instead of handing me an ice-cold sponge, he basically showered me with a handful of them, which was AWESOME and felt better than pretty much anything has ever felt in my life. Thanks, childhood friend!

This revitalized me and I felt pretty strong, if slow, for the rest of the run. Eventually I caught up to one of my racing pals and we ran the last quarter mile or so in together, which was nice. She gave me a sip of her power ade. "I've said 'f*ck' like a hundred times," she said. "I might vomit, I mean it, " I said. I praised her for doing this while breastfeeding. We panted along and finished strong. My running time was not stellar (two 12-minute miles), but I still feel good about it because basically I refuse to feel bad about anything at all!

I hoped I would finish in 1:30, but honestly I considered this an unreachable goal knowing how slowly I would probably run, but I swam and biked a little faster than I thought I would, so I finished in 1:29:53! I saw 1:30:00 on my watch as I stopped for them to take my chip off after crossing the finish line and knew I'd made it under my goal time. I felt fantastic as they slipped the medal around my neck and promptly dumped a bottle of water over my head, an action I would repeat more than once in the next hour and a half or so that we stood around baking in the sun watching the awards ceremony and waiting for a raffle drawing for a new road bike. It was majorly, majorly hot, I cannot lie. But that was okay, because we were tough beyotches!

Here's what I have loved about these triathlons so far. Since they have all been all-women triathlons, some of what I have loved has been women-specific. Okay, here goes, and I've said some of this before so bear with me if I'm repeating myself. It is so awesome to be surrounded by hundreds of women from their early teens to their late sixties at every possible level of athleticism imaginable who are there to achieve whatever their goals are. I love seeing the beautiful bodies of every possible shape and size and fitness level. I love that so many dozens of people come out to volunteer to make it all run smoothly and hand out drinks and sponges and keep cars from running us over and show us which way to turn and tell us we are looking good and that we are almost done and that we will make it. To me, that is just a fundamentally kind thing to do, and I would like to volunteer at some point.

The thing about the word "triathlete" is that it contains the word "athlete." I have never been an athlete, and I still have a hard time thinking of myself this way. Surely no one that knows me would ever apply this word to me. I am many things, maybe, but not "athletic." But with every event, I am starting to be able to feel it a little bit more. This has been really good for me this spring and summer. It has felt like just what I needed.

We've got our fourth and final triathlon of the series in a few weeks a few hours away … this one has a little longer distances in every leg, and there's an open water swim in a lake. To get there, we have to wake up and leave literally in the middle of the night. We will get filthy and be delirious, and I honestly cannot wait.