Perpetually crazy
My friend and co-worker Mike, who I met a handful of months back while working on the Loppet, happened to somehow stumble across my blog the other day…and then he told me about it. What’s funny about this is that Mike only kinda knows me, only kinda knows a piece of me.
It actually made me wonder what comes across when people happen to fall onto these pages. What do they see? How do I and my blog posts actually differ from each other or don’t they?
So I went back to take a look and reread some of the stuff I have scrawled down over the past six years.
Realization #1: Good lord I have been jotting down my inane daily escapes for a while.
Realization #2: I am so glad I have a chronicle of my kids “little-hood”, my dad’s death and life in general as it has ebbed and flowed and changed through the years.
Realization #3: I thought I had just recently taken on an overly competitive athletic bent, I honestly did not think I had been this crazy for so long. No seriously, I read this blog post and was totally taken aback at the fact that I had Boston marathon aspirations in 06.
And just in case you are wondering, I am totally going to smoke the 2006 Mary at the 2011 Boston Marathon.
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If I Were The President…
I love the Chinese school conferences, there is always something funny that boils over from them. This last conference, PJ had a creative writing assignment…yes, all in Chinese.
If I Were The President by PJ-age 8
If I were the President, but I don’t want to be the President, but if I had to be the President I would…
Tell people they should not litter.
I would go to China every week.
I would take care of the animals.
I would tell people you could keep a tiger for a pet.
I would be in my own movie.
I would want a robot to wait on me.
I would ride a lion.
I would play sports everyday.
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Family -1
This is a photo from my dad’s Death Party. All my dad’s nieces and nephews came in from Ohio to be with us for his funeral, say goodbye and celebrate his life. It meant more than they will ever know to have them there with us.
Last night, their dad Joe passed away.
I don’t even know where to start with what a crazy character Joe “Spider” Ryan was. He had a story for everything. He taught me how to shoot a gun. He placed a $100 bet with me when I was 7. He was a plumber, a teacher, a Navy sailer, a lover of the Titanic, a lover of his wife and family, and a restless traveler.
His big personality and spirit will be missed.
Love to you Ryans!
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If you pierced something, what would it be?
Yesterday afternoon, I picked up Erika and we headed to St. Sabrina’s to pick out her belated birthday present, a new nose ring (actually a ball). The previous year we spent time in there getting it re-pierced after years of it being closed.
Since the tiny piece of jewelry had fallen out a few weeks ago and she didn’t want me trying to shove it back in her nose, we got to sit and enjoy the people watching at St. Sabrina’s for quite some time before we were escorted to the back room to get it reinserted. And let me tell you…you would NEVER imagine who gets what pierced where.
We heard it all and I really should have taken photos of everyone, posted them and created a sort of match the photo to the piercing game. That would have been fun. Instead, I’ll give you a quick and dirty run down and you can try to guess.
Here are your choices: eyebrow, labia, nose, penis, tongue, nipple, belly button, ankle or ear.
Answers are on the bottom.
1. Blond 16 year old, not old enough to be there alone. She is in with her mom and older sister and describing the piercings her friends on dance-line have all the while signing, “Mom, IT IS JUST SOOOOOOO CUUUUUUTE!”. She was clearly the “cute” sister and the other older sister was either thinking her younger sibling was really stupid for doing this or wishing she had the balls to pull it off.
2. The 62 year old male who looks like your old math teacher. He has gray hair, glasses, khakis and a Mr. Roger’s cardigan on. It looks like you could really trust him with Algebraic equations.
3. The mid 40’s couple. We couldn’t really tell if the woman was undergoing a sex change or not, but she was all dolled up in over the knee fuck me boots, sheer floral tights, a very short black knit dress and a leather jacket. Her man was just a regular looking salt and peppered guy in workout pants. She knew these people by name and was looking for her new piercing to match her pre existing ones. They were either going to have a lot of fun tonight or they were going to be in a lot of pain.
4. Late 30 year old gal, dressed head to toe in black (not goth, just urban) with grey striped tights and a cane that supported the limp in her gate. I couldn’t tell if she was going to mess someone up with that cane or not. Although, she was also in getting a fix on a botched finger tattoo and hopefully PEACE written on her other hand.
5. The EMT, dressed in her uniform straight from work. She must have been about 25, pink cheeked and ready to save the next guy who was going to have a stroke. She looked too fresh to be part of this group and when I looked at her the song from Sesame Street (One of these things is not like the other) started playing in my head.
ok
time
to
guess
Answers:
1. dangling bedazzled belly button piercing. 2. left nipple-he made it VERY clear the barbell needed to match the right. 3. Lots of conferencing went on with this couple: woman-2 additional labia piercings, man-starts with a P. 4. eyebrow 5. nose
How many did you get right?
Filed under friends, Random thoughts | Comment (0)Surly Boy Wonder
My friend and fabulous work mate at Surly, Keith (AKA Surly Boy Wonder–his jacket even says so) has taken to blogging. He sums up our last Surly Gives A Damn event well and uses the words “lovely” and “talented” in conjunction with my name.
Oh Keith…that will get you far!
Filed under friends | Comment (0)Downhill from here
As far as Boston marathon training goes, we have just left the hardest training week in our wake. That last week was a mighty tough one for me. Finding myself with little desire to run on two of the five days is never a good sign and my body felt like it was breaking down under all of it.
If you find an extra hamstring laying around, I will gladly take it and find someone to replace my left one.
As a little pep me up, my coach shifted my interval workout from today to Thursday to help with my aged legs, that I am asking a lot of, and then told us that we really only have about 5 key workouts left, so stay the course!
We have 3 interval runs and 2 progression runs. Which sounds nice. Right? The interval runs this week are 10 x 800s, next week 12 x 800s and the following 14 x 800s all at 6:20 to 6:30 pace with 1:40 rest between each one. Since I am basically speed sensored, stride legnth senored and cadence sensored to my coach, there is no way of getting around these workouts, only going through them.
These are the kind of workouts that can make you crumple into a heap and cry, they can make you wonder what the fuck you got a coach for, they make all the negative things you ever thought about your abilities well up right before your eyes, they make your mind numb and then they allow you to evaluate how much time you can actually tolerate in your pain cave.
At this point, on the way down the hill, it’s all about keeping your shit together, all the way through to the bitter end.
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Here it is…
The last in the series of what the hell is taking up all my time.
Sunday, the National Junior Olympics for cross country skiing kicked off. It is being held at Theodore With Park and hosted by the The City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation, which is why I am involved. It is going on all week and will finish up on Saturday night.
Ten teams from across the nation, the best of the best, are strutting their stuff and making it happen.
I am beginning to wonder what the heck I am going to do with all my extra time once this is all wrapped up and I am done kick’n it with sponsors.
Maybe clean the house for the first time in six months.
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