SPRING BREAK

Fist pump! White-girl holler! We're going on Spring Break, bitcheessss!

The Gentleman is in town, and we have already had sushi, Indian, and our favorite martinis. Tomorrow, we leave for the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico. I have never been to New Mexico, and pretty much everything I know about it comes from watching Breaking Bad and reading Tiger Eyes. I imagine lots of canyons, nuclear warfare, turquoise jewelry, and meth. The Gentleman assures me that it also has excellent (and spicy!) food, beautiful scenery, lots of Native American culture, and that the meth and nuclear activity is not usually something viewed by tourists. I believe him because he grew up in Albuquerque and might know what he is talking about.

We are spending a few days with his family and then heading to Cancun for the remainder of the week. I have much book reading and podcast listening to catch up on, and after this nasty and bitterly cold winter, I can think of nothing better than parking myself on the beach for a week. I'm hoping we'll get in some good snorkeling too. Despite the fact that I have a very real and overwhelming fear of open water, I do love snorkeling. I just can't think too much about it. 

And, mostly, I am happy to spend time with my lovely boyfriend who would probably take a shark bite for me and refills my drinks without me even having to ask (sometimes). 

When I return, there shall be photos and stories to share. And probably some radiating sunburn.

Weddings, Brew Fests, Cool Runnings, Et Al

Oh, man.

So, been super busy (as always...not really anything new there) but also working in preparations for Snap's wedding this coming weekend. I've got the dress, the shoes, the awesome date, and am fine-tuning the toast. I don't want to give too much away, but suffice it to say that I tried to incorporate a spectrum of emotion that includes Supreme Humiliation. Ok, maybe not humiliation, per say. A touch of humor, maybe. At Snap's expense. Har.

So I went on a long run on Saturday (working towards the Survivor 7 on June 12), and was running peacefully along in some sort of Zenned-out state when I realized that there were throngs of people lining the sidewalks. So I shifted over and ran in the street. Curiously, no cars. Excellent running conditions, however, and the street was even conveniently mapped out with lines of orange cones. Then I realized people were cheering. Just as I was congratulating myself on such good form, I glanced over my shoulder to see Fifi gliding along behind me. Apparently, I had found my running trail along AVAM's annual Kinetic Sculpture race route.

Slightly embarrassing, especially because there wasn't any place for me to turn off, so I just went with it for probably another quarter mile.

So if any of you witnessed the early part of the route and saw some ass running while everyone else was biking, it was me. Oops.

Also worthy of note here was that City Paper's Annual Brew Fest was a couple of weekends ago. As always, it fell on the most gorgeous spring day. I don't know how they do it every year, but it always seems that the weather is in gross extremes leading up to this event. 90 degrees with 100% humidity one day, 45 degrees and raining the next. And then CPABF comes along, and it's 75 degrees, sunny, no humidity. Just perfect.

I'm digging beer right now. Among my favorites:
Boulder's Kind Blue, blueberry wheat
Allagash White Ale
Hitachino Nest, white ale (harder to find, given present export situation)
Dogfish Head Midas Touch, ancient Turkish fermentation recipe (ridiculously hard to find, and ringing in at a whopping $14 per 4-pack in some cases)

So, spring is in full effect. Which means running outside, beer consumption, weddings, and soon- KAYAKING!

Hooray, spring!

Oh, and somewhere in there I'm gonna turn 29. Awesome.

Royalty

After a hasty run the other night, made hastier by the impending storm (because nothing downs your mins-per-mile like a column of cumulus coming at you), I realized that it's true- spring is here. Mostly. After a long, awkward segue of schizophrenic weather patterns with a light sprinkling of devastation around the country.

I did not get up at 5am to watch the royal wedding, but believe you me I have YouTube'd and CNN'd and Google'd my way through the highlights. The dress, the walk up the aisle, the waves, the balcony kisses...it's hard not to get caught up in something so downright timeless. I'm a bit of a known Brit-o-phile anyway (mmmm, Cadbury's and Jaffa Cakes....) but even people who normally wouldn't give a toss (see what I did there?) about such things seemed tuned into this event.

Say what you will about the monarchy, the ridiculousness, the nepotism, the strict adherence to tradition...there's more than a little element of relatable romance to Kate and Will. For starters, I don't think many royal couples met as hard-partying flatmates. They broke up for awhile, but still went to events together, and then got back together. She's cute, he's the prince my generation grew up with. The public dissolution of his parents marriage was a fairy tale gone wrong. His mother's untimely death was one of the great significant news stories of our youth (along with the Challenger, OJ Simpson, and the Gulf War). We want happiness for this guy. We want to cut him a bit of a break. And, all media showiness aside, Kate and Will seem to have struck a balance of romance and friendship that's enviable for anyone, especially a royal pairing.

For those of us who weren't born when Di walked the aisle, this is the royal wedding we all tuned in to see. And a beautiful wedding it was.

Side note: I really want to party with Prince Harry. Does he not seem like a bit of a badass joker? I'll bet he can shotgun a beer.

Anyhoodle.

So, spring is here, William is wed, I've nearly made it through Working All Of The Days, and the City Paper Brew Fest is tomorrow. Huzzah.

Schweet Schweet Schpring

**WARNING: This entry is not about spring. It's about gross bodily fluids. Read on, and don't say I didn't provide adequate warning.**

Spring is in the air.

Or, at least, it was for approximately 4.7 hours on Monday.

And the defaulted immediately back to gloom-and-doom 40-degree cloudy nonsense on Tuesday.

You tease me, Spring.

But this morning marked the first of the outside morning runs. For the past five or so months, morning runs have been solely occurring on the treadmill at the gym. While I have no problem running at night in Baltimore after work, running in the mornings when it's still dark out is arguably more questionable.

But this morning, the sun was up at a reasonable time and even though it was a chilly 42 degrees, I got in a nice run through Federal Hill and around the Inner Harbor. Delightful, really.

Except.

I was never a spitter until I became a runner.

And there is something about running out-of-doors in cold weather that gets the juices flowing. There is something even juicier about running out-of-doors in cold weather in the springtime, with those lovely early-morning clouds of pollen that arise to greet the sun.

However satisfying it is to work up a nice hauk, I can't get over the digustingness of it. Having run a leg of the Baltimore marathon last fall as part of a relay team, I can attest to the sheer grossness of running as a sport in general. Running a marathon and have to go, and the next Port-A-Potty isn't until Mile 7? Just go, man. No trees around? Whatevs. Pull over to the side and get it done. And, yes, this includes other bodily functions.

Something about running makes your body want to expel things. Sweat, primarily, and spit. But other things, too. I'm sure every runner has seen that viral email photo circulating with the guy from the Boston (or New York?) marathon, running for America against the wind with the remnants of his last four meals running down his leg.

I KNOW, IT'S GROSS.

Thankfully, I have never done such a thing. Although the September 11th 5k was a particularly painful course for me given the sudden and extreme cramps I developed (for no reason other than the fact that I'd neglected to have any coffee that morning, so I've deduced). I've also never experienced that hallowed trademark of serious runners everywhere- the puke-and-rally. Not to say that I won't. I'm told that most runners, at some point, will puke. It's almost inevitable. But not yet, not for me, and I'll fight it to the very last if I have to.

But it's true, your body expels things as you run, and for me this manifests into an extremely un-ladylike display of public spitting. I can't NOT spit when I run. Hence my vast preference for running out-of-doors as opposed to a treadmill.

Important note- running inside does not produce as much expulsion as running outside. Temperature, I'm sure, has a great deal to do with it. Also there are no trees dumping pollen on me inside the gym. So far.

Spitting and running go hand-in-hand, and this is something I've grown to accept. I'm not yet, and hopefully will never be, to the point where I would finish the race at all costs without stopping and just allow bodily fluids to go where they will with no regard. But spitting...that I will do. And now that I've gotten the hang of it, and learned to give it some force and distance, it's a great deal less embarrassing than the girly little "PTOOOTS" I used to try that would wind up all over me.

Velocity is key.

Anyhoodle, so spring. Yes. I've decided I'm done with socks this year, and refuse to wear them at all costs (except when running, of course) so if Mother Nature could comply with my personal choices so I can stop being cold, that'dbegreatthanks.

Heliosphere

A brief scroll through Facebook and Twitter tells me that everyone seemed to have trouble sleeping last night. Lot of 3 and 4am posts about insomnia from all corners of the earth.

I blame this.

The whole energy of the world seems off this week, with a lot of tension and uprising visible in everything from strangers bumping angrily into one another on the sidewalks to violent protests in Yemen. Seems too convenient to blame all of this on solar energy, but it does give one a little peace of mind to think that if something is causing all of this worldwide anxiety than at some point it will pass, if that makes sense.

On another note, this random February spring has left me feeling buoyant enough to start hoping for real spring. I took a leap of faith and didn't wear socks today, and the delicious, forbidden feeling of a sockless day in February is just downright exotic.

Torture

In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. -Camus

I, for one, find it an exquisite sort of torture that I have a lovely slice of view of the outside world from my desk. I am the first to know when curious weather patterns are afoot (also because I am the office meteorologist and have NOAA.org bookmarked for instant access; even those with fancy phone apps forgo the ease of button-pushing and simply come to me for up-to-the-minute weather news, so common is my obsession with such things), I have learned to tell the time of day from the slant of light or non-light, and (because I work in Hampden) have witnessed many interesting...shall we say...debates unfolding amongst the locals.

But in mid-February when the weather suddenly and mysteriously rolls out a 65-degree day complete with bold sunshine, this view of the world is a double-edged sword.

I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure I pissed off the four other lunchtime ATM-goers in line behind me by taking my sweet, sweet time depositing a check into the ATM for the sheer pleasure of feeling the sun on the back of my neck. Oops- I seem to have entered my PIN in wrong...again.

2 more months until kayaking season. Light at the end of the tunnel.