growing in the goo

I realized that it was a bit much getting a "mist on" tan before photo time, so I did the best with what I have to work with, and my mom and I headed to the RMV.

The parking lot was alarmingly full, but my mom pointed out that it shares a parking lot with a gym, so maybe the gym was full.

Um, no. We turned the corner to the waiting room — and there were at least 100 people in there. All looking grouchy and awfully "teeming mass of humanity"-like.

I decided get the hell outta there and renew the stupid thing online.

Until 2014...

My license expires Friday (which, not so coincidentally, is my birthday!) - and scoring a decent picture has become top priority.

My first picture was an unmitigated disaster: The whole thumbnail had an air of jaundice about it, and... I had braces - which was bad enough - but something weird happened with the camera, and the light didn't reflect properly, so it looked like I had ONE brace on my front tooth, and nothing on the other.

The second picture, taken five years later on my 21st birthday, was better. My smile is pretty good, my eyes look okay (they're open, at least). I'm wearing a v-neck top that's a pinkish red. One drawback is that my hair looks awfully flat. And my face is kinda featureless. And I'm extremely pale, a hazard of being born mid-winter.

Looking at a friend's license photo, I was jealous of her sun-kissed glow. And the wheels started turning... why can't I have that?

So, I plan on getting a spray tan before renewing... one of two things will happen:

1) It will be ridiculously awesome and I'll keep this picture for the max 10 years and show it off all the time and everyone will admire my cleverness and creativity (and tan).
2) It will be ridiculously ridiculous, and it will make me laugh every time I look at it.

Sounds like a Win-Win!

For a good six months I was on a solid gym streak. Unfortunately, that streak ended about 6 months ago. When I moved home, I was quite adept at finding any excuse for not working out. It was too hot, I was too tired, I missed my old gym, I "forgot," I "didn't want to," "What's the point of running if you don't get to run by the Supreme Court and the Capitol??," etc.

When I started my new job in October, a part of the health benefits package is a discount to the gym that's five steps from the work door. Just my style.

However, the excuses continued - the main one this time being that I used to go to the gym before work, and now I'm "at the mercy" of my parents' schedules, since one of them drives me to the T every morning. Of course, I could, you know, get up early and take the bus to the train, or even just get going a bit earlier, and work it out with my boss that I'll come in a little bit after nine.

Speaking of, that's a great idea and what I might do, now that I'm once again kick-starting the transformation to "Miss Gym." C-note and I are starting the year off on a strong symbolic foot by running a race at midnight in Central Park on New Year's Eve, and I'm using that as the motivation for yet again turning over the ole' lazy leaf.

My favorite part of the gym fascination is all the gear! I got the Nike+ ipod attachment and Nike sneaks for Christmas, so now I can track my progress (and you probably can too, actually...) on nikeplus.com. I bought my very first pair of cold weather Under Armour pants today (aww), along with a ridiculously expensive Nike top/jacket that will hopefully inspire me to run so that it's not money directly down the drain. I also downloaded a Serena Williams workout CD, AND bought a runner's journal.

So you might say that I'm good to go. Henceforth (as in, starting tomorrow), getting a workout in will be a priority. I can't believe that I could run five miles fairly easily back in May and now I'm a blob of pudding and a jog down the street is mind-boggling. When I reached five miles last time I was all, "Oh, it's nothing...." - mentally comparing it to my friends doing marathons, half-marathons, etc. WTF was I thinking? Once I get back to that, I will appreciate all the hard work that went into that effort.

C-note, I can't WAIT for NYE!!!

(Never thought I'd say that... it's taken a race (?!) for me to look forward to this usually horrendous holiday that I pretty much dread every year.)

Every couple of years my mom hosts a cookie swap - everyone brings five dozen of one type of homemade cookie, we put them all on a table, and we all leave with a wide, wide variety of cookies. So, if 12 people come, everyone gets five of each type of cookie, and leaves with 60 total!

This year SIL and I decided to throw the affair (only, you know, at my parents' house). We made the cutting-edge invitations a few weeks ago, and were quite impressed with our cleverness and innate sense of aesthetics.

Lo and behold, time flies, and the cookie swap is coming up on Sunday. In between now and then I have quite a few things to do - prepare the house, we're getting the tree, I haven't really started my Christmas shopping, there's a haircut appointment somewhere in there, I have to make cookies for the work party on Friday, I really NEED to keep going on my gym routine, maybe I can make a cousin's basketball game? And I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out of underwear in two days, so it's either to the store I go, or it's time to do the laundry.

I have a pretty loose definition of "homemade" - to me, if I had to turn a spoon and pop it into the oven, it counts. I kind of thought that was standard line of thought, actually.

So, tonight, after picking up my dad's debit card that he had left at a store, finding an outfit for the work Christmas party, and grabbing some Christmas gifts, I didn't give a second thought to hitting up the grocery store for my cookie "ingredients": Betty Crocker mix and Hershey kisses.

The store was pretty much deserted at 10 p.m., so I had the aisle to myself as I stopped in front of the mixes, and pulled them down into my arms. I had four bags of Hershey kisses, and four bags of cookie mix (who needs a basket?) - I was reaching up for the fifth mix when I heard, from the end of the aisle, a shout:

"HEY! That's not homemade!!!!"

Surprised, I turned my head, and there were SIL and my brother at the end of the aisle! I stammered, and bags of mix tumbled out of my overflowing arms. I bent to pick one up, and another would drop. Apparently SIL thought that I was joking last week when I said that I'd use a mix... imagine the coincidence of coming upon me, in my bright yellow jacket, caught in the very act of buying mix a mere four days before the big event.

After explaining my "homemade" theory, I asked what they were doing there. They said that they were going to make "homemade pizza" tonight - I was all, "Oh, that's great!" and then my brother laughed and said, "Yeah, it's in the frozen food aisle."

Still counts in my book!

I'd just like to officially mark that I went to the gym today. Hopefully this will end my 6-month hiatus...(if you can call a half a year a hiatus?).

This place has a giant glob of five pounds of "human fat" at the front door, which is absolutely disgusting. But looking at it, I almost think they're exaggerating. I mean, I definitely have more than 5 pounds of fat on me, and my body doesn't resemble that (at least, not on the exterior). But I suppose it serves as tough love.

At any rate. The workout was a success. I came in a grumpy mood and left feeling great!

Quote from the Boston Globe reflection of the day (Nov. 14, 2008):

"Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly."
- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand

Quote from the Boston Globe reflection of the day (um...maybe from 2001?):

"There is something in the pang of change, more than the heart can bear. Unhappiness remembering happiness."
- Euripedes

Maybe...we're never happy in the present, but look at the past with rose-colored glasses? But that's a piss poor consolation. My problem is that I want it all.

Last weekend I went shopping and bought some snazzy new work clothes. Before I moved I apparently did a giant purge of all winterwear (and was in the midst of a serious "buying going out clothes" phase, I guess), so this little trip was much needed.

I visited ole' faithful, New York & Co, and got some work pants, shirts, a belt, earrings, a necklace, and underwear. The work pants are, in fact, thrilling. They're super long — longer than any pair that I've ever owned. Long to the point of being dangerous, I thought, as I dressed.

So my mom dropped me off at the train Monday, and I was feeling a bit like hot shit. A new shirt, a daring (for me!) belt, my long pants, nice heels, possibly good hair. I walked by two newspaper guys, and I heard one say, "She's tall, huh?"

I swallowed a "Yeah, but she's not deaf!" and just kept walking. Water off a duck's back. I got to the escalator, and it was broken, which always pisses me off. The escalator at college was always broken, and I could never understand it. Why was it always out of commission? There a bazillion escalators in the world, and these things should operate like well-oiled machines now.

So, to the stairs I went. I was halfway up when something happened - maybe my shoe got caught in my gloriously long cuff? - and I tripped, nearly caught myself, then completely hit the deck, losing my earmuffs in the process.

The woman behind me said "ohh ohhh!!" and I kinda bounced up and lamely said "...My pants are too long, I think..." and scrambled up the stairs, trying to act like it didn't happen. My shin hurt like a total bitch, so I was also working on not crying and looking noble as I passed all the people on the platform.

While waiting for the train, I checked the shin situation, and I was not bleeding - so that was a plus. And my pants did not rip. I texted E, saying "Bad start! I just fell in the train station." When I got out of the train, there was a message from E asking if I was okay.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, I think, and I didn't even notice that I had a horrendous bruise on my knee until I climbed into bed and both my right shin and my left knee throbbed. The bruise, in fact, has turned a different shade of awful each day. Right now it looks like a purple 8.

Before I got into bed, though, E and I chatted online, and I found out that she had overslept that morning, and my text had woken her up and got her to work on time. Theoretically, if I hadn't tripped, she wouldn't have woken up, and would have been late to work.

While obviously this is all small-time, it's interesting to note how my stupid little fall actually had a ripple effect. How many other chain reactions do we set off throughout the day?

G.I.'s in Remote Afghan Post Have Weary Job, Drawing Fire