Bonus Points For The Alex Mack Throwback

I'm sitting here in The Collective's Library Stronghold by myself, because Catface Meowmers decided to go home and take a nap and stuff, so I've finally got the time, space, and inclination to blog a little bit about the start of the semester, how the marathon training is going, and other stuff.

Chronologically speaking, I should mention the bike crash and it's after-effects. Or lack thereof. Anyways, I was biking to work last Friday (work being my gig as a paper delivery boy for the Carolinian) and as I was zooming across campus, I was not hit by a car.

"But surely you're not hit by cars far more often than you're hit by cars," you're saying. "In fact, if you mentioned every time you were not hit by a car, you'd never mention anything else, and be that really boring girl at the Canyon who used to corner you in the hallway on your way back from the bathroom and talk to you for fifteen minutes about stuff that didn't happen to her while you oooch along the wall like Alex Mack."

This would normally be true, except on Friday I was lot closer to being hit by a car than I am, say, right now. I actually had to actively avoid being hit by a car, and in doing so, wound up smacking into a wall head-on and then head-first.

I'm fine, but I totaled my bike, which makes me really sad as it was my favorite commuter. Good enough to use, not good enough to stress about ruining. Easy to step through, toe cages instead of clips... I mean, yes, so I have two other bikes, but they're not really for the same thing. No way am I using the good road bike to commute to school (besides, toe clips to school are just not practical, considering all the starting and stopping and needing real shoes once I get there) and the other commuter is just so pretty I have a hard time wanting to take it out of the house. Also it has screaming French wheels and I can't get the 70s-era generator for the headlight to stop rubbing the wheel wall, even when it's off.

Next! School. Classes started Monday, as you might be aware, and while I am slightly sad about having less time to devote to World of Warcraft, it's fairly well known that I really love school. My brain is much happier when it goes to class a couple of times a day, and packs its lunch in a little sandwich-shaped tupperware container, and stops using its car to run errands. I got lazy over the summer and drove too much. I had excuses but my inability to afford a parking pass trumps them. Biking to and from school really zens me somehow.

I'm in five classes and I pretty much have potential to adore them all. They moved ASL4 from Monday/Wednesday nights to Tuesday/Thursday nights, which is the only bad thing about my schedule, because it means that I can't make group runs or track for a whole semester. Plus it's during marathon training, and it's well documented that I run and train better with other people around who are better than me. I'm going to stick to the plan and get it done, and still kick Richmond in the face, but I might be a little more stressed about it at times. I'm not a good gauge of myself.

I think Victorian Literature's professor is going to annoy me before the end, but I love the material and I'm hoping that sustains me. I may be annoyed by her simply because of her qualities of Not Being My Favorite Professor (Who Is Not Teaching This Course This Semester.)

Also she lectured us for half an hour of our first class about how difficult it was going to be to find a job once we graduated, and that kind of chaps me because I'm an English Major. I know finding a job is going to be hard. It's not like I'm sitting around on cotton candy clouds not thinking about it. I've just had to reach a certain level of trust in the universe that something will happen. Precedent says that it will. I needed a job and the Canyon happened. I needed a bike and several of them happened. I needed a computer to play WoW and Microsoft put the software to make that possible on mega-hyper-sale for $30.

I don't need a career-type job yet, which is why one hasn't happened yet. When I get closer to graduation, something will happen. And if it doesn't, I'll go to grad school while I keep looking and waiting.

So now I need music, and it should probably be the Beastie Boys.

New Florence + the Machine!

I have been waiting SO LONG for that.

I always channel Finding Nemo on the first day of school...

First day of school! First day of school!

Hopefully I'll have time to blog about classes later today. For now, enjoy this song and understand that I've been dancing all morning.

Everyday I'm shufflin'

Do-do-do-do-DO-do-do....

Okay, now that that's done, I can babble about other, more arguably important things. "Like what?" you ask. Well, really, there's nothing more important than the fact that every single day I am shufflin', shufflin' and it's getting really tiring.

I bit the bullet and decided to self-publish Three Adjectives today. My argument with myself went a bit like this:

Me: "'Self-publishing' is usually just code for 'awful book no respectable house wanted to publish,' and everyone knows it."

Also Me: "Yeah, but Three Adjectives isn't really the direction you want your career to go in, so you'd never show it to a publishing house, anyways. You might as well let it get out there."

Me: "You never know. I might come back to it."

Also Me: "Be honest. You lost your editorial steam on that novel practically before you finished the first draft."

Me: "I don't wanna say that..."

Also Me: "It was always supposed to be light and fun. Easy. There's no shame in admitting that you accomplished your goals. Let people read it if they want to read it."

Me: "Oh-kay. Fine."

So I'm self-publishing Three Adjectives Or Less. If by some miracle it turns out that people like it a lot, I own the rights and even the ISBN to it, so I can always pull it off my own imprint and sell it to someone else. I think that's what finally sold me on the idea - if you read the fine print, self-publishing is kind of temporary. John Dies At The End was originally self-published; I own one of the original copies of it.

No, I'm not saying 3Adj is at all comparable to the brilliance that is John Dies At The End. It's an awkward novel about an awkward person who may or may not have a lot of me in her. 3Adj was kind of a glut of a novel. I try really hard to keep obvious references to my own life and my own opinions out of my work, but I thought, for once, I would just write, and let everything slide. So Remy talks about The Elephant Show, and my grammatical pet peeves, and comfort foods, and she's afraid of cows.

Because cows are scary. Duh.

I'm not gonna make a big deal about this. I'm not gonna tell anyone, and I'm not gonna pimp out the book on various internet forums and all that annoying, self-published stuff that happens. But if someone is looking for lesbian fiction on Amazon.com, they might find it, and hopefully they'll buy it and read it.

Until then, and probably also after then, everyday I'm shufflin'...

Stick to the plan.

According to The Plan today, I am to run 7 miles. 7 "easy" miles. So that's what I'm going to do.

Ah, yes, The Plan. Which I did not write myself. I figured this was a smart move considering that I don't tend to make good decisions when it comes to training. 90+ degrees outside? Perfect running weather. Your first 13 miles since before you got injured? Do it in 100% humidity.

So, yeah. I got RunnerJen (that's how she is in my phone so that's how she's gonna be in my blog) to make me a plan. And it kind of highlights the fact that I'm a little bit dumb in my normal life. For instance, without the plan, today would have been 10 miles. Cross training is only on it one day a week (Sunday) when I usually bike for exercise (not for just getting around) three days a week. Also I expect I'm going to have to learn what a fartlek is. The only other major change is that my rest day has moved from Friday to Wednesday. Which means that I can eat cheese on Tuesday nights as opposed to Thursday nights.

My approach for this marathon is simple: Follow The Plan.

My idea is that I don't focus on any other fitness/body goals during this time. I do what it takes to run the distance in something like the time. I'm not gonna track food or worry about how many calories during this time (even though, side note, I'm pretty sure I'm getting fat and no one is telling me) because I have passed a royal edict entitled 'It Doesn't Matter What I Look Like Until After I Have Run A Bitchin' Marathon.'

Food right now is going to be one thing: Fuel. And it's about quality of fuel, and timing of fuel. Try not to junk myself up, but let it ride. There are automobile metaphors I'm just itching to break out, but I'm resisting. I don't know why I'm resisting, but I am. It probably has to do with the headache I have from re-editing 5 Rules this morning.

Apparently sometimes editors are bad at grammar, and don't care one bit about silly things like 'Voice of the Narrator in a First Person Narrative.' But that's ok. I'm fine. I don't need a nap or anything about it. I just need some more Iron Chef America, and maybe another cup of coffee.

I'm obsessed with this song. I think it's uncommonly beautiful. I can even listen to it full volume in the car when I have a migraine.

My Stargate is bigger than your Stargate.

During the run this morning, The Bad Influence and I were trying to breath air so humid it was condensing on my glasses, so obviously I felt chatty. I needed a distraction. I couldn't tell if The Bad Influence was annoyed or also in need of a distraction, because I wasn't really capable of caring about his needs.

I reached deep into the well of 'Shit That Doesn't Really Matter' in my head, and came up with, "Why isn't Stargate considered as a viable science fiction universe?"

Which is a genuine question I, as a Stargate fanatic, have always wondered. People are always asking, "Star Wars or Star Trek?" The Stargate universe is probably just as expansive as either of those. There's the original series, and Atlantis, and Universe, along with the original movie and two others. Multiple alien races have been well-established - the Stargate 'mythology' is probably even more fleshed out than Star Trek. Clearly, some Trekkie would argue that but I'd win because I'm tenacious and when cornered by Q I would just shout, "Thor! Thor! THE MOTHERFUCKING ASGARD!"

I mean, Stargate HAS Q - the Ancients. And they never throw up their hands and say, "It's a Q thing!" They actually explain the supposed hows and whys. They have space ships, and transporters, and even Jedi-like beings in the Ascendants.

So I think I'm officially backing Stargate in the 'My Fandom Is Better Than Your Fandom' fisticuffs. If only there were awesome Stargate conventions... oh, wait, look at that.

Now I really want to Stargate cosplay.

A Haiku In Honor Of My First Big Group Bike Ride

I came (in spandex)

I saw people (in spandex)

I conquered my fear

(of spandex)

Victory (And Musical Snobbery) Is Mine

I figured out what the .2 of a song will be on the Richmond playlist: M.I.A.'s 'Ba-na-na Skit,' off of Arular. Get yourself an education....

After much debate, I have decided NOT to include Eye of the Tiger. So far I have 11 songs. Well, 10.2 songs. Still taking suggestions.

Girl is rockin'

I wanted to start this morning with something we all need sometimes: a montage of Santana Lopez being sassy.

Luckily, the internet knows, and provides.

Yeah, I'm aware that the fact that I watched the whole thing twice means that Santana Lopez just ate 20 minutes of my life. I'm OK with that, and I think she'd expect nothing less. (Though I'm not sure I ever realized how often Santana got slammed into lockers...)

I wish I'd had even half of her attitude in high school. I was kind of... well, no. Not kind of. I was a wuss. I practically had a big ol' sign on my back that said, "Slushie me." (Except it must have been clear that I was too miserable to even bully. When I think about my high school self, I picture the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, only if the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had really long blond hair, and instead of proton packs the Ghostbusters were carrying little signs that said, 'You're gay! You're gay! Everyone knows it!' Less Santana Lopez, more... what's the most pathetic thing you can think of? That. Stuffing Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream into its face.)

I went on my first group bike ride yesterday, and it was seriously a lot of fun. We had to cut it unfortunately short on account of monsoon, but I'm going again on Wednesday. It felt really good. Sometimes I really had to push to keep up, but even that was... my quads haven't felt that kind of serious exertion in a while. When you're running in the heat and humidity, your pace and effort is determined mostly by your cardiovascular system and how much usable air you can manage to suck down your windpipe, which lately is not much.

I got up this morning at 5:30 to run, and the humidity was at 100%. How is that even possible, you ask? North Carolina, I say. So, I re-evaluated, and came up with three facts.

The Three Facts

1. 100% Humidity

2. 5:30 AM

3. Darkness On Country Roads With No Sidewalks Or Shoulders

These three facts combined made me decide to go back to bed and later, at the entirely reasonable hour of 9AM, send out an SOS SMS to someone who I thought would likely run with me. So now I have a legit plan to run my 10 miles with him out at the PEC at 5, when the humidity is only supposed to be 47%. Yes, it'll be hotter then, but the air will be breathable, and I will not be hit by a semi.

This song is the latest one to go on my Marathon playlist. Well, actually, this song as remixed and mashed up by DJ Earworm into the song 'Girl Is Rockin (Erik E vs Wyclef).' It's addictive in that form, but quite nice in the original, if not exactly running toned. Note that the actual song doesn't start for 37 seconds, because Wyclef loves his theatrical music videos, and that's what I love about him.