Post-Crisis, Pre-Thirty

Dear Blogging Community Who Patiently Deals With My Oft-Sporadic Posts,

I'm giving you a fair warning.

December is going to be batsh*t crazy.

I looked at my calendar for the month of December, and there are TWO (yes, TWO) days where I have absolutely nothing planned.

And I already turned down a housewarming, a Christmas party, a baby shower, and plans with my own mother because I was starting to feel crazed.

I'm grateful for the busy-ness, of course, and most everything planned is fun. Some is not so much "not fun" as it is sort of "chore-like;" but awesome chores like, "Get international driver's license." That's a pretty sweet chore to have on your list, don'tcha think?

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the "Monumental Occasion" 40th lighting of the Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon from the newly-erected roof balcony of the building where Donna's used to be before the terrible fire last year. A friend of mine from high school (who is basically awesome) scored invites for herself, The Gentleman, and me. Open bar, catering by Donna's, heaters keeping us all warm, and the best view of the monument in town. Not only that, it was fascinating to be inside the building where they are now renovating so Donna's can reopen post-fire. It's such an old, beautiful building and was thankfully saved from complete destruction. Because this friend is an architecture nerd, we got to learn a lot about the interior of the building and the plans for its future. Also awesome.

In catching up with this friend, she told me that she reads Ye Olde Blog religiously, and how the content change over the years has made her feel like there's a sense of watching transformation. That meant a lot to me.

Three years ago, I was lamenting boy drama and crying about my future onto this blog. Which made it highly readable (and now, highly embarrassing...kind of like having your high school diary published in the yearbook). Now, the high highs and low lows of life seem to have evened out a bit more into a general sense of happiness about life, my blogging gets kind of sporadic.

I once had a guy I dated ask me if I was ever happy (I guess he meant content), would I stop finding things to write about? I guess I like to think that in my happiness, it's not so much that I don't have anything to write about, it's just that I have different things to write about. It's not about failed relationships, career mishaps, and the rocky life of a twentysomething feeling like the victim all the time.

What is this about? Well, I'm still the same emotional, highly neurotic person I always was, my life is just ten times better now. I still cry senselessly in public, embarrassing The Gentleman, and I certainly still do stupid things, like getting a hot stone massage while hungover and sunburned in Vegas.

If there's one thing I could say to the earlier me, to the me that was in years past, it would be this: you will become exactly the person you want to be, for better or worse. You'll make decisions you never thought you'd make, you'll wind up living a life you thought you couldn't have here or now or in the here and now, and above all- you will reclaim that unquenchable thirst for life that drives you to rebuild houses in post-Katrina New Orleans and snorkel with sharks in the Keys. And run a half marathon. And sign up for another.

It's not really a blog about the quarter life crisis anymore (especially because I'm six months away from 30, so damn well better not be!), or about awkward dates and failed jobs, and started and stalled careers. There's nothing to say it won't revert back to any of these things at any time, because - let's face it - the economy means no one's job is safe and I still stare quizzically at The Gentleman trying to figure out where along the line I got so lucky as to land this guy. But it's more than that now. Somewhere in there, when the drama of things that seemed so huge at the time began to fade away and I made decisions that made me feel confident, my real life began. The one I thought I was meant to be living a long time ago. The one it took many twisted paths to find. I think that feeling is universal to anyone who's tripped and stumbled and somehow regained footing. I certainly don't feel like my experience was unique in any way. I'm just the one who wrote about it publicly.

And now my days are filled with running, with working my ass off at a non-profit where I hungrily devour new projects that require me to do things like learn web design and write grants, eating and drinking my way around Baltimore, watching American Horror Story (amazeballs!), planning our trip to Amman and Istanbul, laughing with Book Club and good friends, and spending time with the best guy I have ever been lucky enough to meet.

So yeah, a lot of things have changed. Damn well for the better.

And now, onto December. READYSETGO!

Puked and Lost a Toenail

Well worth it, and now consider myself a real runner. What's next?

Take Your Mark

Soooooooooooooooooooo.

The last couple weeks of life have been chaotic (but, really, when is life ever not chaotic?), hence the lack of posting. I feel as though I came back from vacation, packed up my life, and moved in the span of about two and a half weeks. Oh wait...that's exactly what happened.

Life is again a flurry of boxes and bubble wrap, only this time it's a more settled feeling. My new house is beautiful, the neighborhood is divine, and things are slowly but surely beginning to develop new patterns and routines. A week into the new house, and I can make my way from my room to the bathroom downstairs at night without the lights on. I call this progress.

Oh, and tomorrow I'm gonna run a half marathon. You know, no big deal.

Actually, wait; it is a big deal. I've been training for this thing for eleven weeks. And while I haven't had time to update the mileage to the right of this page, I know that I've put 175 miles on these feet since August in preparation for this.

Icing on the cake - my dad, my boyfriend, and Catalano are all running too. My lone hobby became a project for my boyfriend and me, and I will say that training with a partner was much, much easier than training alone. We did all of our long runs together, starting at 8 and working up to 12.5. We had difficult runs where we could barely pick our feet up off the ground, and runs where we finished before we realized. I have to say, I probably got the better end of the deal - training with someone who was a college athlete was a huge asset. I learned what to eat, how to stretch, when to rest, when to push. The best part: I had someone to rub my shins and shoulders and work the knots out of my calves.

What?! I cooked him dinner on many occasions!

So this half marathon will be a family-and-friend affair, and I couldn't be more excited. And a little nervous. I've been working towards this for the last few months, but also I feel as though I've been mentally prepping for this for the past year. Last year when I ran the relay, I knew this was something I wanted to do. The greatest physical challenge I've taken on thus far.

And one of those bucket list things: run a half marathon before you're thirty.

Shoot. I should probably make a list of all those things I was supposed to do before thirty. Because that's in like...7.5 months. Damn. I need to get busy figuring out world peace, writing a best-seller, and penning a Billboard top single.

But first...I think I'll unpack some more boxes. And run 13.1 miles.

Marathon Relay

So, I'm pretty much still on an incredible high from this weekend. The marathon relay was everything I had hoped it would be- a beautiful fall day, running through the streets of Baltimore, feeling strong and finishing hard. I ran a little slower then I would have liked, but the whole race felt so good that I can't complain. After the race, my team managed to somehow collect a few hundred free beer tickets (literally- I have no idea how we hunted and gathered so many free tickets when everyone was only supposed to get 2), hit up Lee's parent's annual Marathon Party (where I'm pretty sure I housed about 4 plates of food, because apparently I forgot to eat post-race in all of the hubbub and fun), and then not only made it to the Avett Brothers concert at Pier Six (with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals) but also managed to close down the bars later that night. It was a marathon of a day, to say the least, and I'm still recovering. (See what I did there? Ha.)

To add to my lingering high today, I was called into the conference area to find that my bosses and coworkers had gotten me flowers and cookies to celebrate the completion of the big run. It was such a thoughtful gesture, and I'm pretty sure I would have shed a tear or two if I hadn't excused myself to go put the flowers in some water.

The whole experience has left me with a bit of a hankering for more, and a serious interest in training for the half next year. And this is how it starts. A 5k here, a 5k there...then a six mile relay....then a 13-mile half marathon. I don't think I could fully commit to the whole marathon, but then if you'd told me six months ago that I could beast out 6 miles in a decent time and feel so fantastic, I would never have believed you.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

(photo: Uptown New Orleans, March 2010)

"The abject poverty revealed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans exists in every urban area of the United States. It's poverty so severe that it kills people."
- Robert Edgar

"The past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it; all this shit matters. Like at the end of the book, ya' know, boats and tides and all. It's like you can change up, right, you can say you're somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story. But, what came first is who you really are and what happened before is what really happened. It don't matter that some fool say he different 'cause the things that make you different is what you really do, what you really go through."
- "D'Angelo Barksdale," The Wire, Season 2 Episode 6

My New Years' Resolution was distilled down to a bumper sticker slogan.

In grad school, I had a professor who celebrated the bumper sticker slogan school of thought. Every major theory, every complicated idea, everything that any philosopher or theorist or great thinker had ever thought of could be, somehow, distilled down to a bumper sticker slogan.

Descartes: "I think, therefore I am."

Hume: "A wise man proportions his belief to this evidence."

Hegel: "Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion."

The Life's Work of philosophers, some might say narrowed down or diluted. The details purged, the importance scoured to a sound bite.

But, in the end, the human brain will do this work anyway. We work in classifications, in categorization. Stereotypes exist because the human mind seeks to create order.

My New Years' resolution: finish what you start.

Initially, this was aimed towards creative projects and Jackal came on board as well. We made a promise to one another to practice "follow-through" in 2010. That was my entire resolution, based on the premise of "follow-through." Put your money where your mouth is.

Yesterday, I ran the Baltimore Women's Classic. My goal was simply to finish in an average time: I did better. Not only did I train, not only did I push, I set a new personal record. If you had told me, a year ago, that I would be running races, I wouldn't have believed it. I am not a runner.

Well, now I am.

I have another 5k in two weeks, and I intend to beat my new personal record.

I am signed up to run a leg of the Baltimore Marathon in October with a relay team.

Ultimately- I want to run a half-marathon. This is my ultimate goal.

And I'll do it.

And, in other news, Glitterati got a job.

A 9-5.

Yep.

Why?

Because I have to follow through.

In New Orleans, I made a promise to dedicate myself to social justice. I saw how poverty exists everywhere, and it took me flying so many thousand miles away to see it, first-hand, to realize that change starts in my own city. In my own neighborhood.

After months of job-searching, months of interviewing, I have landed a job with a non-profit that seeks to serve social justice. That provides choices and opportunities for the disadvantaged. I am returning to the 9-5 working world because I am following through on the promises I made to myself and my city to help in any way I can.

I've spent the last two years soul-searching, distilling, figuring out what is most important to me. I have held and abandoned many beliefs in that time, I have embraced and set free many ideas of who I am and who I want to be. And the only thing that sticks, like strands of finally-cooked spaghetti against a wall where I've been throwing raw ideas for two years now, is that I need to be contributing in some way to society. I chose non-profits, and I found a job in one that does significant good for the impoverished, disadvantaged, and beaten-down populations of the inner-city.

And, selfishly, I started running and lost ten pounds. The two are related in the sense of the follow-through, and I'm all for it.

New Orleans taught me a lot. About hard work, dedication, poverty, the complex issues of cities, natural disasters compounding all of this, and also a lot about my personal limits of what I can and cannot do. I was pushed. I responded. I followed through. Eventually, I ran a 5k and got a job that I hope will segue into a career.

For those of you who have stuck by this blog over the last two years, for those of you who have seen the seemingly impossible ups and downs, the "break-ups and breakthroughs," as Stephanie Klein calls them, and all of the many ridiculous moments I've had, take note: ultimate break-throughs require a great deal of personal confidence and pushing oneself very far beyond the limits of what you thought you could do. Knowing now that I can do these things is an immensely powerful thing. It opens up new questions, most notably: "Hmmm...what else can I do?" and, not to be ignored, "Hmmm...what can't I do?" The former is a bit more productive than the latter, but both are interesting perspectives to ponder.

So, Glitteratis, my advice to you is this: do it. Whatever it is you sort of have a vision of, do it. Tell everyone you know that you intend to do it (because making your desires public is one very sure way of putting a fire under your ass), and then follow the steps. Make a plan. Draw a calendar, and spend everyday doing one small thing toward this goal. Start by running one mile. Run it faster. Then run two. Then three. Get some new sneakers. Push yourself. When you're tired, when you're feeling beaten down, keep going. There's no room for tired here. Do the extra lap. Up your weights. Close your eyes and meditate for a moment and feel yourself doing it.

"I have an irrepressible desire to live life until I can be assured the world is a little better fo rmy having lived in it." -Abraham Lincoln

What's your bumper sticker resolution? Don't wait for a new year. Start now.

And finish what you start.

Solid Gold

"That guy over there? He's wearing an Olympic gold medal," the bartender whispered to Josh and I.

We were having a late-night Monday-night post-trivia drink, Josh and I, and he immediately leaned over to me and whispered, "This is why I go out on week nights."

"Should I ask him if I can hold it?" I asked the bartender.

"Sure, he's totally cool. He's been talking to people about it all night."

Josh and I approached the man that I would later learn is Steve Holcomb, who led the American Olympic bobsled team to victory this year for the first time since 1948. Not only did he let me thoroughly manhandle his medal, he was kind and outgoing and clearly just fine with the attention.

"It's got teethmarks on it," he joked.

Once we'd gotten our fill of completely molesting an Olympic gold medal (which, by the way, is incredibly heavy), we ambled back to our bar stools.

"He was so nice about that!" I said to Josh.

"Well, I imagine if you're wearing your gold medal out to a bar, you don't mind people asking you about it," he said. Touche.

"I have met the cast of The Wire in here," the bartender said, "and I will tell you that meeting that guy was so much cooler to me."

There is something pretty amazing about meeting someone who's a celebrity because of a pretty kick-ass victory. I've met film and television stars (including the Epic Subway Ride of 2002 when I got into an argument with Katie Holmes back in the day when she was more Pieces of April and less Batshit Crazy), I've met politicians and musicians, and somehow I was more floored by holding an Olympic gold medal worn by a guy who brought his team to victory. He's famous because of a hefty accomplishment.

This isn't to say that actors and musicians are somehow less worthy of idolatry or that their talents rank somehow less than that of an athlete, but it is worth pointing out that Olympic athletes are famous for not being famous. They're not professionals, they do it because they love the sport. And there are thousands of people who can claim celebrity for being an actor or a musician, but there's only a handful of gold medals out there.

And, holding that heavy piece of metal in my hands reminded me that there are so few material objects in the world that can sum up an entire career. A medal, an Oscar, maybe. Something so iconic and blatant is rare. To me, it will be a book. And rest assured if I can figure out a way to get a silky blue ribbon attached to it, I'll sure as hell wear it out to a bar, and I'll sure as hell let people touch it.