Sometimes, Melissa runs her legs. Sometimes, she runs her mouth.
There are a lot of religious fundamentalist in Arkansas. The “Jesus Fish” is seen on lots of cars. There are also lots of fish with the word “evolution” in the center. This is the first fish I have seen with the word “n chips” in the middle. It brightened my day.
After my Jingle Bell 5K experience with hills, I decided to enter the Little Rock Half Marathon instead of the marathon. With that adjustment, I decided to incorporate some hills into my training regiment and see what happens. So far so good.
Today was an 8 mile run. It’s not the longest run I’ve ever done (that would be 12) but it is pretty far and still a little intimidating. There was 10 mile an hour winds that seemed to be blowing in my face. It didn’t matter which direction I was running, the wind seemed to adjust to be blowing RIGHT IN MY FACE. It was hard enough that I felt it was slowing me down. My short goal is to manage to jog up this hill without stopping to walk. It’s pretty steep. I didn’t make it this time. Maybe next time.
No one tried to run me off the road.
I did however meet another runner which surprised me. There doesn’t seem to be that many bona fide runners around here.
So when it was all said and done. (according to the Nike + iPod)
8 miles
1:40:31
average pace 12:33 minute/mile
My favorite song for this run was “When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls.
My friend Jennybee is a new Aunt. Even though I am not only old enough to have a child and am old enough to start worrying about the freshness of my eggs, I still don’t feel old enough to actually have a kid. I’m stuck in some sort of adolescent mindset. When I get bonafide big wrinkles, I am going to faint. I have friends who have teenagers and they weren’t teenage moms. Lord have mercy, when did I get old?
Today I heard that in this town, an African American woman who lives in a prominently white neighborhood had her house vandalized and the police did nothing. I mean people literally spray painted “N&****” on the front of it. It didn’t even make the local paper. How the hell does that happen? in 2008?!? I am stunned. Completely stunned. Of course, I had to call my friend to apologize for making jokes about her Fort Knox style security system on her house.
My post Jingle Bell 5K soreness and hill running problems during the race have convinced me that instead of signing u for the Little Rock Marathon, I am going to sign up for the half instead and do more hill training and pace training instead of just trying to finish. I think my legs will thank me.
As a business owner, I can attest that I am feeling the economic fallout of everybody being broke. It’s a sad sad day in Melissaland.
A few weeks ago while running in the dusk, a guy turned his headlights on bright and swerved toward the shoulder where I was located. Seriously, some mother fucker tried to “pretend” to run over me. What if he had lost control of his big ass truck and not been able to swerve back in time. I had on the big hunter orange vest with reflective tape that promised to be seen from 1200 feet away. Who does that?
From Jezebel
A new study in Psychology of Women Quarterly explores the double-edged sword of being both female and ambitious. Women who, like men, approached job interviews with confidence and ambitious were, like men, viewed by interviewers as “highly competent.” Unlike men, they were also seen as lacking in social skills… a reason often used for not hiring them. Of course, women who displayed modesty and cooperativeness were viewed as less competent, and not hired for that reason. Men were more likely to get hired than either type of woman. [Eureka Alert]
I don’t even know where to begin. Of course, we saw this play out in the public sphere with Hillary Clinton and even, Sarah Palin.
Yes I have seen this play out. Throw in the need to be a “southern lady” into the mix and you got a hot mess of fuck. And yes it’s not a good thing.
Bettie Page, pin up queen with the hairdo imitated by a gazillion hipsters, died today at 85. She was one of the first women to pose nude in Playboy and one of the first women to pose in bondage photos. She managed to be sexy, beautiful, and wholesome at the same time. She was as described by Hugh Hefner, “the bad girl next door.”
She got married a couple of times, spent several years in a mental institution, and became a born again Christian. It’s amazing how lives change but she will always be immortalized with her dark bangs and bright blue eyes and vintage underwear.
I’ve never understood people going into crazy debt trying to buy Christmas gifts. For as long as I can remember, my mother’s way of buying Christmas gifts was that there was a huge change jar in the corner of the kitchen. Over the course of the year, change went into the jar. That change was the money used to buy gifts.
My grandmother, on the other hand, sold pecans. She has quite a few pecan trees on her property. It becomes a family affair really. First they are picked up off the ground and put in big buckets.
Then they are cracked and picked out. “Picked out” is the process where all the non edible contents inside the shell of the pecan gets removed from the edible part of the pecan. This is done carefully so that the pecan itself is still in one piece. Then the pecans are rinsed and put in a big dishpan.
From here, the pecans are put in baggies in one pound increments. Yes there is a scale but not where I took these pictures. They are then sold. The harvest is anywhere from 500-1200 pounds.
Look Ma. I got a Thank you postcard from the Obamas. It’s all kinds of sweet. It has signatures from Barack and Michelle. There’s the obligatory, we couldn’t have done this without you. Obama also keeps up with his recurring theme that this is our government. It is “by the people” and “for the people.”
Another interesting thing is that President-elect Obama seems to be keeping his promise about keeping us informed. He puts his radio addresses on youtube. He has updates on his campaign site. He updates on the change.gov site. Also, you can apply for a job on there. This, if nothing else, is a definite change than the very secretive Bush Administration.
Seriously, some days it’s just better to stay in bed and agree to wake up tomorrow.
I am supposed to be making 15 mix CDs for a mix cd exchange. Actually, it’s 15 copies of the same mix CD. When it’s done, I will have 15 mix CDs from 15 other people. Have you ever noticed that no matter how much you love the music, the minute you agree to do a mix CD exchange, you suddenly find your music dorky and completely unacceptable? Who knew I had so much ABBA on my machine?
Today, I attempt to put together something and my itunes is down. It gives me some sort of “error in quicktime” message. It says to press help. I get a reinstall notice. I press the button and there’s a “fix error” button and I press that. I do all this crap and restart. The minute itunes opens, it gives me the same button regarding “error in quicktime” Well fuck. This has been going on off and on all day.
I’m guessing the CD will be covers.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Here is a copy of “The World at War” taken from newsreels and Japanese archive footage.
Veterans gathered to celebrate the anniversary.
We should always remember Pearl Harbor. We should always remember that the aftermath of Pearl Harbor created Japanese internment camps and the Korematsu decision. We must remember not to let our fear and anger over tragedy turn us into that which we claim to despise.
I woke up bright and early for a Saturday to run in Craig’s Jingle Bell 5K. Craig is Craig O’Neil of KHTV Channel 11 fame. He has big eyes and big lips. Think Mick Jagger but replace rock star sexy with goofy and that’s about it. This is the first race timed race I’ve run. It’s also one of the first larger races I’ve run. By larger, I mean large enough where I would have to worry about hitting or getting hit by other people in the beginning due to the crowd. Since running a marathon is one of those life goals on the bucket list, I figured I should get used to it.
It was exciting. Crazy exciting. I invited my mother to come with me to watch the action. It turned out she hates the cold and sat in a restaurant to keep warm the entire time. Oops. She was a trooper otherwise though.
It was chilly this morning. I hadn’t registered beforehand so I got to be there before 10:30 to get in. It was windy and chilly.
When I picked up my race number, I also got a temporary tattoo and some tiny jingle bells to put on my shoes.
ME and my TATTOO!
JINGLE BELLS!
I wasn’t expecting the big push of adrenaline waiting in the crowd at the starting line right before the race. It is a “I wanna go! I wanna go NOW!” feeling. Also, my training runs on the high school track and the shoulders of roads didn’t prepare me for the pounding that is running on the street. . Also, I didn’t know you could wear your iPod during a race so I had no music. There weren’t tons of spectators cheering you on like there were at the Race for the Cure.
My calf threatened to shut the race down on me at the first hill so I had to slow down my pace and walk up most of the hills. My time, therefore, sucked really damn hard. I had to remind myself this was my first race and the goal was to finish. This was a FUN RUN dammit. It wasn’t like I had any chance in hell of coming in first.
This 5K run/walk had the distinction that you could walk your dog in the race. There were lots of cuties. Some wore Christmas-y garb and some didn’t.
Here’s a picture of me looking like a dork at the finish line. (Dear Lane Bryant, Can you pLease make some jogging pants that don’t want to go up to my boobs. Seriously those are some Steve Urkel style highwaisted jogging pants from hell. I might send the other pair of pants I have unopened back.) Craig’s in the background.
My post race lunch was a gyro platter at Leo’s Greek Castle. YUMMY!
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