Author Archives: admin

marathon eve

{12 October 2008}

before the 20-milerthe 2008 chicago marathon starts in less than 12 hours. i’m writing this in a last-ditch effort (9:30pm, i really ought to be in bed by now, the alarm is going to go off at 5) to record something about how i’m feeling now. tomorrow, after the marathon is over, i’ll want to remember who i was now, and who i will be after i complete (fingers crossed for no race-day disaster!) my second marathon.

training for this one has been very different from my first marathon. i’m still frightened of the distance, to be sure – it took me about a half dozen half marathons before that became a distance that i know, and understand, can comprehend. i’ll probably need as many marathons before i’ll feel comfortable in that way, maybe more. right now i’m filled with dread, and excitement, and dread, and…did i mention dread? the temperature is expected to soar up to 80 degrees tomorrow (october heat wave in chicago two years in a row? wtf!?), and i’m having ugly flashbacks from last year’s meltdown marathon. but i *do* feel confident in my training. i put the miles in this year. my comfortable training pace has come down by about 40 seconds. i am strong. i know this.

i also know that marathons = unpredictability. the key to marathoning, the life lesson here, is adaptability. it’s doing all the prep in the world (and trust me, all my clothes are laid out, bag packed, i’ve even laid out my breakfast already), and knowing that there are still a zillion factors i can’t control, and that i have to be prepared to take what the day gives me (weather, injury, transportation woes, illness, or perfect conditions) and figure out how to adapt and cope. it’s about adjusting expectations as much as adjusting your plan of action. feel good? run faster? feel bad? slow down.

okay, so two paragraphs ago i started writing about why the training process for this one was different. the big thing is that i teamed up with my friends marci and helen for this race. they are both new to marathoning, and have called me coach and put me in charge of the training program. (my main coaching qualifications being that i’ve run one (disastrous) marathon, a few half marathons and other long races, and that i read a lot of running magazines). really, it’s been about 70% cheerleading, 20% actual running coaching, and 10% focus on my own training. helping M and H face each new challenge has actually helped ease me through some of the hardest days. and what i’ve got out of this experience is that coaching is something that i really love and seems to really fit me. i think next year i want to look into doing more coaching, either volunteering as a mentor for a community program, or taking some classes and really training to be a coach.

in the mean time, my heart is warmed by all the friends who called/texted/emailed/snail mailed me in the past two days to wish me luck. it’s like having an extra birthday, warm fuzzies arriving unexpectedly.

however, all this touchy-feely-learning-about-myself crap doesn’t change the fact that I still have to run 26.2 miles tomorrow tho. we’ll see how i feel when i get to the end. for now, it’s time for bed.

gambatte!

free association gabfest

{26 September 2008}

political angst in numbers is good; sympathetic company is best. i will be watching the debate tonight in the company of other like-minded leftys. how disappointing that next week i have to call a show during the vice-presidential debate.

which brings me to the clips of Katie Couric handing Sarah Palin just enough rope to hang herself with that are flying all over the interweb today. Emily Bazelon (of Slate.com’s excellent Political Gabfest) bemoaned Sarah Palin’s embarrassing ineptitude as being bad PR for female leaders everywhere, but i disagree. i’m plenty concerned about the damage that Palin could inflict on our country if she gets into office. but as for her ineptitude as a candidate? competent women leaders and their reputations will be fine. Sarah Palin doesn’t speak for me.

speaking of disasters of our own making, how about that economy, eh? last night i actually saw my first ever honest-to-god bank run. i was driving past a Washington Mutual around 5pm and noticed a line of people that stretched past the storefront bank and around the corner. because some news blip about Washington Mutual being on shaky financial ground had entered my brain in the past week or two, i actually thought to myself, i wonder if all those people are trying to get their money out of the bank? images of the bank run scene in It’s a Wonderful Life popped into my head. then i decided that the generally high level of anxiety in the news lately was seeping in and i must be paranoid. they’re probably queuing up for something at the shop next door, i thought. what i didn’t realize until much later that night, was that the collapse, seizure and sale of Washington Mutual had just been announced around the same time i saw the hoards of people.

moving on from the truly scary to the truly bizarre, i’m really really excited about the Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland adaptation that was announced yesterday. as you readers of slithy tove can guess, i’m deeply partial to Lewis Carroll for many reasons, artistic and nostalgic, and i’ve seen the Alice story retold and retreated about a half dozen times, some to very good effect, some not so. but i think the Tim Burton aesthetic isn’t a bad place to start at all.

however, since that won’t be released until sometime 2010, i’ll have to set my sights first on Repo! The Genetic Opera, which looks to be some sort of instant campy cult hyrid of Rocky Horror, Buz Luhrmann, Joss Whedon, and Meatloaf*. i’m particularly excited about Anthony Stewart Head playing the conflicted villain, tho i am deeply troubled by the fact that last night one of the characters on Gossip Girl was headed out the door to go watch Repo. what? fake TV characters get to see movies before they are released for real? what gives?**

we’ll wrap up this, my own gabfest, with two facebook-related topics: a link to my new favorite piece on McSweeny’s: HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION), and a moment to mention how pleased i am that Facebook now offers English (Pirate) as a language selection. if you’re Facebook, every day can be Talk Like A Pirate Day!

* to my knowledge, none of those artists are actually involved in the project.

**in my defense, i had just run 12 miles at race pace in preparation for next week’s marathon, and i was really really tired, so tired, in fact, that i couldn’t get off the couch to find the TiVo remote and change the channel. i swear.

***this footnote is in homage to David Foster Wallace. i can’t seem offer anything at all eloquent on the topic of his untimely death, but will say that his work certainly influenced my own writing and my analytical approach to the world — footnotes being only the stylistic tip of the iceberg.

Are you registered to vote? are you sure?

{25 September 2008}

So I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes administrative stuff like getting a library card, paying my electric bill, and registering to vote, can seem way more complicated than it should be.

I can’t help you with the utility bills or the library fines. However, here’s all the info you need to make SURE you are registered to vote. Don’t risk getting to the polls (or NOT going to the polls) on election day and being unable to vote!

This site, which is run by the Obama campaign, seemed to be the easiest one to use that I found. Even if you think you’re probably registered (did you move in the past couple of years?), you can use it just to double check that you are registered just by entering your name and current address. Check it out at: www.voteforchange.com

If you’d prefer a non-partisan place to register, you can go to: www.registertovote.org

Google also has a really handy tool for making sure you know where your polling place is (The G says polling locations will be posted mid-october. In the mean time the tool is great for getting your states deadlines and general info)

Don’t wait! In Illinois, you have 13 more days to register! Other states have other deadlines. That Google tool I listed above will tell you what the deadline for registering in your state is.

Also, for all you Chicago folks: don’t forget that you can vote early! This isn’t absentee voting, you can actually walk into a polling place, ANY of the early voting polling places, any day between October 13 and election day, and cast your vote. No lines, no waiting, no risking that your polling place might run out of ballots on election day. I do it every time I vote, and it is soooo much easier. Here’s a link to all the info about voting early in Chicago:

http://chicago.about.com/od/governmentandmedia/a/earlyvotingcook.htm

Now you have no excuse! A few quick clicks and you’ll be all set. Don’t let this opportunity slip by!

sunday sept 14, 5:35am: will the rain stop?

{15 September 2008}

i woke up this morning at 5am for the chicago half marathon to the tap tap tap of rain. checked the radar map to see if the rain would end before the race got started at 7:30. every time i zoomed the map out further, the storm cloud (that’s the leftovers of hurricane ike you’re looking at in green and yellow) got bigger. maybe only because it was 5am, it was funny enough to me to take a screen cap.

the rain did not, in fact, stop, and we ran the entire half marathon in the pouring rain. more than 7 inches of rain fell on chicago over the weekend.

i finished with a time of 1:53’47”, which is not my fastest time yet, but given the conditions it was my best time compared to other runners.* too bad, then, that i mostly only race against the clock. that is the good and bad thing about an inclusive sport like running. there will always be someone faster than you and someone slower than you, but the clock isn’t subjective. it doesn’t account for rain, or blistered toes, or a bad night’s sleep.

this week is peak marathon mileage**, then we start the taper down to marathon day, october 12. think good thoughts for marathon day weather, friends. these races in the rain or other non-ideal conditions are good practice, good for strengthening the moral fiber and all that, but when you’ve been working, daily, toward a goal for nine months, you just want it to go well. this year some of my marathon energy has been diverted to helping two women (who have, over the past 6 months, become my very dear friends) train for their first marathon. which means that i not only want a good day for myself, but for M and H especially. the law of averages means that if you run enough marathons, there will be some good ones and some bad ones. but when it’s your first, well, it’s hard when it doesn’t go as expected. trust me.

that’s another one of those cliche-because-it’s-true life lessons about running distance events like a marathon. you can spend weeks and months preparing for it, but it all comes down to one single day and there are a million factors that are out of your control. you can train and train, and on the day of the event, wake up sick, or roll an ankle, or there could be a freak heat wave in chicago october, or any of a million other things. running is about taking what the day gives you, and adapting. adapting yourself, but also adapting your expectations. you can’t work this hard and plan for failure. likewise, you can’t possibly prepare for all of the things that could go wrong. so instead, you have to make the body, and the spirit, flexible.

*120th of 1215 in my division (women 30-34), put me narrowly in the top 10%
**which is only 37 miles, practically nothing in the world of distance running, but still plenty for me.

dragonfly hatch

{07 September 2008}

lately it seems like i don’t have or can’t take the time to blog about the big stuff that is rattling around in my head. like about how my grandfather was in the hospital last week, and how the family dog went into the emergency vet on the very same day, and that by unhappy coincidence it turns out that both of them have cancer of the pancreas/kidneys/liver that is probably, eventually, terminal. and on the same day, how two of my friends had babies, joyous occasion on the heels of sad occasion, and the bittersweet reminder that life just keeps moving forward, whether we like it or not, and we can get on the train or watch it go by. and i wonder whether or not i’m on the train or stuck in the station. but i dislike being delineated by feeble, mixed metaphors for emotions and thoughts which are big and yet still unformed, which feel deeply personal and yet suspiciously like universal cliches, and so i shy away from doing the work, to process and understand it in a semi-public forum.

and i haven’t blogged about the marathon, which is just five weeks away, or about aikido, both of which are slowly transforming my body and my person. or about politics, about how sarah palin makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and how i actually donated money to a political campaign for the first time because i am so honest-to-god fearful of what will happen if the republicans win the election.

because those things, and more, are very important to me, near and dear to my heart. it takes hard work to write about them and make sure that i get it right. it’s easier to procrastinate.

and so, in the mean time, i write about apple pie. and….dragonflies!

this afternoon i took a little break from tech rehearsal and walked across hyde park to go to the bank. it’s a perfect early fall day: the trees and grass are still green, but there is a mellow golden quality to the sunlight. after leaving the bank i was passing a small park on 53rd street when i noticed the late afternoon sun shining across a little tree-ringed clearing. in the clearing, swirling a few feet above the grass, were dozens of big orange dragonflies. dragonflies are hands down my favorite insect. i made a few sorry attempts to photograph the scene – lit up by sunlight but seen against a backdrop of shade-clad trees, the dragonflies glowed like fireflies – but the beauty was all in the motion and the camera couldn’t do it justice.* i meant to return to the street but something drew me in. i walked across the clearing and flopped down in deep, cool grass on a little rise. slipped off my flip flops and dug my toes (tired from running 18 miles this morning) into the grass. i folded my hands behind my head and watched the dragonflies zip around crazily overhead, careening off one another in some frantic mating dance, and above them white puffy clouds streaked across a blue sky in ever-shifting patterns.

i’m not very good at slowing down. i’m obsessed with multi-tasking. but maybe the combination of sleeplessness (i’m in tech) and the very long run this morning finally put me into a zone where i could kick back in the lawn and just be for a few minutes. i was drowsy, and could have happily closed my eyes and taken an afternoon nap, warm in the sun, hair ruffled in the breeze**.

*i held very still and tried to pretend i was part of the landscape, but i wasn’t able to tempt any dragonflies into landing on or near me.

**tho, being the city girl that i am, i do know better: falling asleep in the park at 5pm is a good way to wake up cold and stiff, in the dark, with no wallet.

productive procrastinating

{03 September 2008}

so i procrastinate by baking. i’ve made peace with this personality flaw, and furthermore have decided to embrace it. it’s better than watching youtube instead of going to bed on time, right? usually i bring the baked goods into work and feed them to the carpenters on their morning break, which suits everyone: i don’t get stuck at home with two loaves of zucchini bread or 3 dozen cookies, and the carpenters, when plied with homemade bakedgoods, will eat out of my hand* and do anything i ask.

i feel like i’ve pretty much mastered the basic quick breads/muffins, and i’ve got a reasonable handle on cookies and scones. last summer was devoted to the fruit cobbler. so i’m now moving on to simple pastries (ie, pie crust). actual leaven bread is probably years and many procrastinated tasks away from me yet.

last week i went apple picking in wisconsin, and the apples were were pleasantly crisp for eating, but a little bit picked-too-early sour. i figured they’d make great baking apples, and so saturday i made an apple pie from scratch. i generally understand the science behind pastry crust, and have helped my father/brother (both of whom are expert pie-makers) make pies, but this was the first time i’d made one from scratch in my own kitchen.** behold the results below. not too bad. the crust came out a little over baked, thanks to my highly unpredictable oven, and a little tougher than i’d like it to be, but definitely still flaky. the apples, as i had expected, treated with cinnamon, sugar, lemon zest and allspice, were divine. the recipe i followed came from 101cookbooks, though i altered the crust recipe to go with an all-butter crust instead of using a combo of butter and crisco.*** i also used white whole wheat flour instead of pastry flour, just because that was what i had on hand, and that might have been a mistake. after all, i want my food to be made of simple, nourishing ingredients, but if we’re baking pie here, we’re not making health food.

*metaphor, people!

**i realized it must be the first time i’ve made my own pie at home when, filling mixture and dough all ready to go, i discovered that i didn’t actually OWN a pie dish. oops. emergency run to target.

**the whole point of cooking at home is that i like to eat food made of simple ingredients. why spend 5 hours making a pie crust just to load it up with trans-fat filled vegetable shortening? i am determined to learn how to bake without frankeningredients. Bisquick and Crisco, you are banned from my kitchen!

now i know what facebook is good for…

{20 August 2008}

this is the Best Email Ever. or at least, the most random i have received in a very long time.

Facebook: Chris sent you a message.

——————–
Subject: Did you intern at Boise Weekly?

[your author’s name here] —

Are you the same [your author’s name here] who interned at Boise Weekly?

If so — and this has been bothering me for years — I wanted to apologize for the library fine we racked up on the book you checked out as part of your intern duties.If there’s any chance you remember the cost, I would be happy to reimburse you. Probably not with interest. (Yes, I know. I really am this compulsive. Not, apparently, compulsive enough to get a book in on time, but there you go…)

Also, I wanted to say it looks like you’ve done really well. Clearly the most successful of any BW alum — OK, maybe that’s damning with faint praise. Congratulations on everything. Hope all is well.

And if this is not that same [your author’s name here]… Yeah, that would be embarrassing.

Take care,
Chris F

i did, for the record, intern at Ye Old Boise Weekly – in 1996*! i have no recollection of the libarary fine incident – tho it is possible that the Boise Library is still harboring a huge fine in my name, for all i know.

*for those of you tracking such biographical details, i also worked as the receptionist/food critic for the BW again, a few years later, but it was under a different management team, apparently.

{03 August 2008}

have i shared this yet? my new favorite food/recipe blog:

http://www.101cookbooks.com

the recipes are mostly if not entirely veggie, and the site layout is just so aesthetically pleasing, with stunningly beautiful photography. if the food wasn’t so darn healthy i’d call it full-blown foodPorn. but i think to really qualify as foodPorn the recipes need to feature unrestrained quantities of things like cream, bacon, cheese, butter, refined sugar and white flour. right? okay, i’m still working on this theory.

anyway, blessed with a embarrassment of zucchini from my CSA, i turned to 101 cookbooks for help and in the past two days have made zucchini bread laced with candied ginger and curry powder and quinoa and roasted zucchini salad with goat cheese and pine nuts. both were awesome. i am a new convert to the cause that is quinoa. who knew you could make it in the rice cooker in under 15 minutes? and it’s so full of protein (for a grain, that is) and amino acids that it qualifies as a superFood. if i could figure out how to make something snazzy with quinoa and broccoli, i’d be unstoppable.