Apr. 27, 2005
8:00 Wednesday night
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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8:01 pm
This evening, in the car in front of me, there was a little white poodle. I could just see his head, and he was clearly very VERY happy to be riding in the car. He kept running to the window and peering out, then dancing around on the seat.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be as happy as that, with as little provocation?
Kind of like a rousing game of kick ball.
Christine said when she lived in LA, she tried to get people to play games, like hide and seek. She says that 90% of the people she talked to couldn’t imagine playing games like that. How sad it that? And please, somebody tell me why baseball and basketball and football are so different than those fun games. Except that the games I talked about are fun for everybody, and you don’t have to be at all good at anything athletic to play them. And you don’t have to spend any money on any equipment or clothing or anything, you just play.
Playing is good.
By the way, ABE FM, 93.9, plays ANYTHING, they say. Although today I noticed that they were playing a song I’d heard them play recently. What about the 10,000 songs in a row, commercial-free? I guess they didn’t mean ten thousand different songs. The announcer today said that Abe Lincoln spent four score and seven years collecting CDs, so ABE FM could play anything. Do you think somebody got paid actual money to think that up? I’m afraid they probably did. Earlier, he said that Abe spent 200 years collecting records so they could play them all. Very lame, but I do like the music.
Today I was riding my bike near UIS, and a guy was walking down the side of the road, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, talking on his cell phone. It was quite chilly today, plus very very windy, but the guy seemed oblivious, just walking and talking and hopefully not getting hit by a car. I wore a bright yellow jacket in order to not get hit.
And I didn’t.
OK, here’s one bad thing that happened to me today – I lost another sports watch. A nice new Timex that I’ve only had a couple of months. I looked everywhere for it, but it got sucked up like all my hands-free cell phone things. I went to Wal-Mart to buy another one, and decided to buy the six dollar watch instead of another genuine Timex, which is about thirty bucks.
It looks just like the Timex. It seems to be a good watch. One slight problem – I can’t set the time. I tried and tried, for over half an hour, but finally couldn’t stand it anymore. There aren’t that many buttons to push, not that many options for watch-setting, but I couldn’t make it happen. I decided against taking it out in the driveway and running over it, but that was a tempting idea.
I gave it to my dad, who claims he has good luck with setting the time on all kinds of watches, even cheap ones, even FREE ones. So maybe he’ll be able to figure it out, and peace and calm will once again pervade my being.
Whew.
Also, my other deep trauma today was buying a new bathing suit. I haven’t bought a new one in several years, and decided I need one that’s quick-drying, because it’s going to be cold on the morning of the triathlon, and when I put a t-shirt on over my wet suit on Monday, the suit was very very wet. Not a bad thing on a hot day, but torturous on a chilly morning.
Let me just say I can’t think of many things worse than trying on bathing suits. Agony, having to look in the mirror and actually choose one. Some of them were SO TIGHT, a couple were baggy, and most looked fairly wretched and hideous both. I know there’s always a joke about women and the agony of trying on suits, but it’s ALL TRUE, IT’S HORRIBLE. I found a basic black Speedo that didn’t look too awful, and was relieved that I don’t have to go around looking at myself in a bathing suit anymore.
The blood bank called me today. The thing that bothers me about the blood bank is they always act like ALL THE BLOOD IS GONE and the only way to save millions of lives is if I go in RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE and give blood. They weren’t quite that urgent this time, but they did seem somewhat frantic. I understand their need for franticness in order to get people to donate, but I didn’t have time today. And because I’m going to be in the mini triathlon this weekend, I’m concerned about giving blood and then going out and exercising a lot. I thought maybe I’d wait till I take a break before the triathlon, but then worried this loss of a pint of blood might make me more tired for the race. I’m going to wait till next week, and I’m hoping I’m not going to cause any serious loss of blood issues for anybody who might need it. When I go there I can grill them about how long it takes to replenish the vitality from the blood loss. Not that I’m going to be in ANY MORE TRIATHLONS, so it won’t be an issue, but there might be some other sort of physical activity that I’ll want to be at my peak for.
A stirring game of Duck Duck Goose, for example.
All right then, I hope you’re making it through your week. I’ve been managing to make it through mine somehow, and look, only two more work days.
Ok then,
Grace awash in randomness and in the mood for games.
Apr. 26, 2005
Duck Duck Goose
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5:10 pm
Ok, here’s another thing about the workshop I went to on Sunday: we were talking about Chakras. Do you know about Chakras? You should at least know that they’re different energy fields in your body. There are seven of them, plus a few more over your head. It’s just a good term to know, I don’t care if you don’t believe in the Chakras, but if you’re at least familiar with the term, you can talk about it at cocktail parties.
Will I ever be invited to a cocktail party? Have I ever been invited to one? I can’t recall. Surely I have. Perhaps the term would more likely come up in a yoga class, although I know somebody who claims to do yoga, and he’d never heard of Chakras. I first encountered them in yoga class in LA, Santa Monica to be exact. My yoga teacher’s name was Mindy, she was blonde and wonderful and never traveled east of the 405. The 405 is the freeway that separates West LA from the rest of the sprawling place, and it would be difficult to stay on the west side all the time, but she did it. I really admired that about her. If I ever live in LA again, I’m going to live west of the 405. If you keep going west, you run into the ocean, which I’d like to do right now.
So, this is the definition of Chakras; I just looked it up online: The word chakra is Sanskrit for wheel or disk and signifies one of seven basic energy centers in the body. Each of these centers correlates to major nerve ganglia branching forth from the spinal column. In addition the chakras also correlate to levels of consciousness, archetypal elements, developmental stages of life, colors, sounds, body functions, and much, much more.
In the workshop, we were talking about the different Chakras, and finally, Judith got to the seventh Chakra. It’s located at the soft spot on the very top of your head, where it’s all fused together. Here’s some information about Chakra Seven:
Chakra Seven:
Thought, Universal identity, oriented to self-knowledge
This is the crown chakra that relates to consciousness as pure awareness. It is our connection to the greater world beyond, to a timeless, spaceless place of all-knowing. When developed, this chakra brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.
It’s a good one, Chakra Seven. But this isn’t really about the Chakras at all, actually; that was just some background information for your own personal broadening of your horizons and general edification.
We had to talk about how we felt when we visualized each chakra, and one woman said she started to think of Duck Duck Goose.
I HOPE you’re familiar with Duck Duck Goose. It’s one of the few physical activities I ever excelled at in school. In case you grew up on Mars and never got to play Duck Duck Goose, this is how it works: you sit in a circle, and one person is “it,” and they walk around the circle and touch each person on the top of the head, and as they do so, they say, “duck, duck, duck, duck…” and finally, finally, they yell GOOSE! And then the so-called goose has to jump up and chase the “it” person, and if they catch him or her, then the “it” person has to be “it” again. But hopefully they won’t catch the “it” person, and then they have to be “it.”
It’s a very fun game, and if there was a group of people here, I’d make them play it right now.
Thinking about Duck Duck Goose made me reflect on all the great grade school games I played. Dodge Ball. Kick Ball. Red Rover. Why did we have to stop playing them, that’s what I want to know. I could do all these games. Even kick ball, which involved being able to actually make contact with the ball, and running around bases like softball. But it was easier than softball, because we used those enormous red rubber balls, and you’d have to be even worse at sports than me to not be able to kick the ball. You’d have to be legless, pretty much, in order to miss the Kick Ball ball.
But then came junior high, the darkest and bleakest time of my existence, and it was filled with basketball and tennis, volleyball and softball and even football, all those wretched sports that I couldn’t do and hated and was filled with much angst because of.
And now I ask you, what happened to the grade school games? Why were they all pushed under the rug, shoved aside, banished from our lives? Because now, all the junior high sports are on TV, they’re big business, there are amateur leagues all over the country for anybody to take part in. You can play them, you can watch them on TV, you can go to professional sporting events, you can spend all kinds of money on merchandising as well as actual bats and balls of your own.
But why not Duck Duck Goose? Why can’t there be a National Red Rover League? Summer Dodge Gall games for adults? Kick Ball Championships? I understand there will always be plenty of people who live and breathe baseball and football and all of that, but isn’t there room for games that are just plain fun? They could certainly be on TV; I believe there are now over one million sports stations broadcasting at all hours of the day and night. I haven’t been watching a lot of TV lately, but wouldn’t a game of Red Rover be more entertaining than one of those horrible reality shows? And wouldn’t it be fun to spend an evening playing a vigorous game of Kick Ball, instead of softball?
I also understand that there are plenty of adults who were good at all those junior high sports, and are still good at them, and so that’s why they still play them. But the one time I was asked to play softball (and it was only the one time, of course), I was terrified, and I couldn’t hit the ball, and the whole time I silently prayed that I’d be hit by a bolt of lightning, so I could just die and be done with it. Not really die, but just be shocked and pass out and then I could go home.
There have to be other people than just me who feel this way. I get all kinds of exercise now, but it’s all lonely, solitary physical activity. It would be fun to be on a team, to play sports with others, but I can’t do anything that involves a ball hurtling towards my head, because I will duck.
And I’d much rather Duck, Duck, Goose. Is anybody out there with me on this? I think, if I’m able to somehow pull together some people who’d play these games with me, well, we’d all be on our way to having healthy and developed Chakra Sevens, full of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.
Plus, it’d be a lot of fun.
Let me know.
Ok then,
Grace, Master of Duck Duck Goose
Apr. 25, 2005
monday night
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10:13 pm
i had approximately 17 minutes of rehearsal tonight. actually, a few more minutes, because after we all sang the “can of beans” song, we sat around while the woman who plays elizabeth sang a song with the guys. her part consists of singing “today i’m getting married,” or something like that, about three times.
whew, it was exhausting. we have to go back again next week. i’ll keep you posted.
have you ever seen that show “medium?” patricia arquette doesn’t hardly sleep at all in it. she has lots of disturbing dreams, which always seem to be true. so that’s something to be thankful for, despite the not sleeping, at least i don’t have disturbing dreams. have i told you about my dreams? horribly, horribly dull. for a while i dreamed that i was ironing. yep, ironing.
anyway, my weekend...no races. i was going to see that movie “the interpreter,” but somehow i didn’t get around to it. how can a person with this much free time manage to not accomplish something as simple as getting to a movie? maybe this weekend.
i made lots of asian food on saturday night. sushi, pot stickers, pad thai. i did it all because i wanted some sushi, but i knew the sushi from cub foods wouldn’t be satisfying. and plus, i woke up on saturday and decided it would be nice to cook for my family, since i’ve been very negligent in that regard for quite some time.
sunday, i went to an all-day workshop. let me say that i am NOT A WORKSHOP PERSON. i’m not a meeting person, and i don’t do workshops, i avoid any kind of stuff like this LIKE THE PLAGUE. and i’ve been plague-free all my life. but this was an empowering workshop. the title was: EMPOWERING THE SPIRIT: A WORKSHOP TO SHIFT YOUR ENERGY FIELD AND YOUR LIFE.
and let me just say that it did. I mean, it was great. for one thing, it wasn’t boring. for me not to get bored while sitting down in a chair for seven hours is nothing short of miraculous. we did a bunch of guided meditations, and we wrote stuff down in our journals, and we did all kinds of things that you might possibly scoff at (i can hear christine scoffing right now), the kind of stuff that i was quite skeptical about before doing it. the leader of the workshop was judith corvin-blackburn, who is an amazing person, a psychotherapist, an author and teacher. i loved listening to her talk.
it was basically about actualizing your potential. listening to your soul. acquiring more personal and spiritual power.
by the end of the day, i was fully activated, feeling powerful. like i could conquer the world.
and i did, today. well, i didn’t completely conquer it, but i did get a lot of stuff done. and, most importantly, i feel good about things. i’m not sure how long this will last, but i’m going to try to keep the stuff i learned close to my heart.
Mom wanted to know what, exactly, we did in the workshop, and i told her about the meditating, and about how Judith talked a lot, but there’s really no way to explain it well. it’s just something you have to experience. There were 16 of us in the workshop, and when it was over, we had to go around and say how we felt. a surprising number of people said they felt drained. I wasn’t drained, not at all. i think one thing the experience taught me is that even though i have all this angst and stuff buzzing around in my head all the time, i’m actually in pretty good shape, emotion-wise. realizing this is a huge breakthrough, and makes me feel really good.
ok, and i’m going to share with you a big thing that we did - in one of the meditations, we had to imagine somebody standing in front of us. judith said this was our Spiritual Warrior, the spiritual being who would help us to be strong, will protect us and show us the way.
a clear image immediately came into my head. afterwards, judith asked us to share with the group who we saw. other people had some pretty profound images. i decided not to share.
my warrior is a cartoon character. i can see him in my mind right now (and i’m glad he’s going to be with me from now on); he’s a lot like the Disney character Hercules. A class tall cartoon disney strongman, absurdly broad shoulders, dark hair, wearing a tunic. with a silly little half-grin. i’m going to have to watch the movie again, to see if hercules is exactly who i was thinking of. When we were doing the meditation, he was quite wise and good, but at the same time, full of disney-like goofiness, pirouetting around in his tunic.
You can see why i didn’t want to bring him up. everybody else’s warrior seemed a lot more, um, profound and deep and meaningful. but the more i’ve been thinking about my man, i realize that of course he wouldn’t be all serious. he’s thoughtful and is going to help me out a lot, i know, but he he’s funny, he makes me laugh. because that’s who i am, it’s an intrinsic part of me. finding the humor in things is what keeps me from being REALLY depressed, and it’s something that i can’t help doing. it’s just how my mind works.
maybe i should have brought him up during the workshop, because even though he’s not full of the “meaning” that means stuff to other people, he has meaning to me. lots of meaning.
anyway, today i did plenty of physical things. i tried the tri ahead of time. i’m going to be in a triathlon on sunday, a mini, tiny triathlon, but a triathlon just the same. it’s called “try the tri,” starting with a mere 150 yards of swimming, in the fit club pool. this will consist of swimming back and forth and back and forth and back and forth down the length of the pool.
did i ever mention that i flunked swimming lessons when i first took them at the YWCA? we had to swim the WIDTH of the pool, but i couldn’t master that.
after swimming, we’re going to bike 5 miles, then run 1.3 miles.
it seems like nothing, really, but i was nervous about the swimming, so i started swimming last week, and i like it a lot. so today i loaded my bike into the back of the minivan and drove to the fitclub. i swam for 15 minutes, then i put on some shorts over my swimming suit and got my bike out of the van and rode for 22 minutes, then i put on my baseball cap and ran for 26 minutes. all these times are longer than the time i need to go on sunday, so now i’m filled with confidence about the day. the only difference will be that it’s going to start early in the morning.
but with hercules by my side, how could things go wrong?
and not only that, but i’m pretty tired now becaus of all the activity, so that means my sleep tonight will be completely through the night.
one final thing - i was running down the street in my baggy shorts, my big t-shirt and my baseball cap, and there were some guys working on a house and one of them whistled at me. i wanted to yell, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND THERE? YOU THINK THIS OUTFIT DESERVES A WOLF WHISTLE? WHAT ARE YOU, BLIND OR SOMETHING? but i didn’t want to stop.
that is all for now.
ok then,
empowered grace, you’d better watch out.
Apr. 22, 2005
more museum decidation photos
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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3:32 pm
i’m here doing things FAST, here are a few more photos:
snipers!
 
 
here at panera on friday afternoon...
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3:19 pm
a couple of old guys just wanted me to look up “inert material” on askjeeves.com. doesn’t inert mean that it’s dead? like “inert gases?” they were talking about some bomb stuff that had been found or something and that it was “inert material but it could have exploded.” hmm. i was pretty much no help to them. but at least i was interacting with other human beings.
i went running at washington park earlier; it was perfect outside, slightly brisk, really lovely for running. i stretched and got in my car...and then it started to pour down rain. how’s that for good timing? maybe things will pick up, maybe this is a good omen, maybe...ok, there goes that moronic optimism rearing its big dumb head again.
as i was cooling down, i walked around the conservatory and found a labrynth garden. i thought that was pretty cool. i’ve never walked around on that side of the conservatory before. the labrynth needs to grow a little, though, because right now it’s not very...labrynthical.
here’s another photo from the show. i don’t know if it’s too small to see, but i was making a really funny face here for some reason:
as i’ve said, i have millions of these show photos. here’s a few more:
oh, and here’s a photo of me with my new blonde hair:
i’m still waiting for the “have more fun” part of being a blonde. it’s all about attitude, though, i’ve decided. if i THINK i’m having fun, then i will have fun. it’s all in my head. actually, i became blonde when i was about 16, and remained blonde for years and years, and i don’t think i ever had THAT much fun being blonde. i was a brunette for a little while, and i know that wasn’t so much fun. being a redhead was all right, except i never ever felt like i was really a redhead. it’s kind of like trying to feel like i’m really a runner. no matter how much running i do, i don’t feel like one of those REAL runners who run.
Last night Thad was telling me about how people have different body types. he said he’s an...ectomorph. that means he’s basically prone to skinniness. he broke his shoulder not that long ago, so he hasn’t been able to work out, so even though he’s sitting around eating ALL THE TIME, he’s losing weight. go figure. we had a discussion about what kind of body type i am, but we couldn’t come to an agreement. there are two more types, the endomorph and the mesomorph. i just looked it up online (REALLY FAST, BECAUSE OF THE HIGH-SPEED WIFI!), and the mesomorph woman has an hourglass figure, which is me. but also they said the emsomorph has thick skin, tans easily, and has a face that is “cubicle” in shape. a face like a CUBE? nope, not me. the endomorph is basically...fat. roseanne, john goodman and jack black are listed as famous endomorphs. qualities include a spherical face, fine hair, smooth skin, plus general chubbiness.
i guess maybe i’m a combination. combinations include “ecto mesomorphs, or endo mesomorphs, where largely, they are like the mesomoph, but with traits of the ectomorph (such as small joints or a trim waist), or traits of the endomorph (such as a tendency to gain fat easily).”
am i boring you here? because i’m starting to bore myself all of a sudden. the thing is that you can look up ANYTHING online ALL THE TIME.
when i had a boring job sitting at a desk all day long in LA, i did, indeed look up stuff all the time. it always seemed there was something i needed to research, so i got good money (plus health benefits and paid vacations) for looking stuff up for myself.
damn, i know there were other VITAL things i wanted to write today, but now i can’t remember them. i hope your weekend is a good one, even though here in spfld it’s going to be DOWNRIGHT COLD. it’s supposed to get down to 31 tonight. i’m blocking that out of my mind. i’ve already gotten my summer clothes out, and i unplugged my electric blanket and hurled it to the floor.
ok then,
grace living here in my own reality.
Apr. 20, 2005
a little bit of everything on wednesday
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12:40 pm
my plan was to just stay in bed today, but i decided to get up. i’m not sure why. maybe because it’s so beautiful outside. but i was really, really enjoying sleeping.
i hurt my hand swimming today. this is the same hand with the weird, painful bruise on it. as i swam, i got too close to the wall and then i SMACKED into it with my hand, and now it has a big red scrape in addition to a bruise. how can a person scrape themself swimming? if there’s a way to hurt myself, i’m all over it.
yesterday while doing weight-training (which continues to be a fairly boring endeavor, but at least it doesn’t last that long), i heard two guys talking. one was going on and on about the music he’d selected to listen to, a compilation he’d burned. he talked about how he’s always screaming when he works out. not literally screaming, of course, which would be slightly unsettling for those around him, but screaming in his head, all the time. because he’s so angry.
gee, and i thought it was bad inside MY head. but there’s usually no screaming in there. lots of whining and complaining and other unpleasant emotions, but the screaming anger would be even more draining, i think. the guy talked about the kind of music he’d picked - i think Sting, and maybe...Alan Parsons Project? and a couple of others that sounded like they might be kind of gentle. hopefully they are, to try to calm the screaming.
there was an article in the paper yesterday, or maybe the day before, about the drug meth, and how it’s becoming the drug of choice for lots of teenagers. i don’t know a lot about this drug, except that it seems like it’s a particularly nasty, addictive one, one of the kinds of drugs that makes you sell all your possessions in order to buy more. or else you can make it yourself, hence all the houses exploding all the time because of the meth labs. but they compared meth to pot, about how those are the two things kids are into. isn’t this like comparing, ah...that date rape drug to...a watery white wine spritzer? i’ve never met anybody who became addicted to marijuana, became gaunt and a horrible mess and ended up either blowing themself up or selling all their stuff or robbing people to buy more.
the museum dedication was good. i’m glad i went. there were lots of people there. when we went in, they confiscated our water. a Person Who Knows About Such Things told me that somebody could put some kind of clear explosive in a bottle, that’s why they confiscated it. Then why don’t they do this at airports? There, they just make you take a drink of it. The Person Who Knows About Such Things said if somebody wanted to blow stuff up, they wouldn’t care if they got poisoned by drinking the water. well, isn’t this also true on airplanes? i’m just asking. I’m glad they don’t take my water on the airplane, because sometimes i have uncontrolled coughing, and water is critical for me.
we sat close to the front, and the crowd was very orderly. at different points, a person would stand up; there was one woman in particular who kept standing up, sometimes standing on her seat, in order to take photos, but then she wouldn’t sit down again. people did not take this lightly. a guy in back of me was particularly virulent about it. “SIT DOWN NOW!” he’d scream hoarsely at the woman, “YOU’RE BLOCKING THE VIEW! SIT DOWN! SIT DOWN NOW!” i mean, he was clearly a very angry person. definitely lots of screaming going on in his head, all the time. plus spilling right out of his mouth.
But at least the woman did sit down. some women in back of us also cried out for people to sit, but when they did, they said “thank you.” very polite.
there were many official people on the stage, including Senator Obama and Dick Durbin and a couple of Representatives. Plus, the girl who won a contest sponsored by C-Span. You had to write an essay that was exactly the length of the Gettysburg Address, 272 words, i think. Her essay was quite good, about Lincoln and the importance of words and stuff like that.
Gov. Blagojevich also spoke, and even though i don’t really like the guy (is there anybody in Illinois who still likes him, i wonder?), he did say something funny. He said he didn’t know what the contest winner’s SAT score was, but his ACT score was only 18, pretty average, and he’s the governor, so he’s sure she could be President of the United States. He was fairly engaging the whole time, and not too long-winded.
Actually, none of them really went on too long, except the cumulative effect was a little wordy. Lincoln, freedom, etc etc etc. They should have all had a limit on the number of words allowed.
President Bush was also interesting to listen to, at least initially, until he talked too much. but he talked about how Lincoln’s use of language was written about disparagingly in the press, and this got a big laugh.
Dad saw Air Force One flying over the house as it took off. he also told me that there is enough food on board for 2,000 people. he said he thinks this is for an emergency, in case they have to fly away. food for 2,000 would last them quite a while. i wonder what the food it - cans of stuff? that would be awfully heavy, wouldn’t it? frozen food? hmm, that doesn’t seem quite as safe, because what if they had to crash-land somewhere, and the food spoiled?
a guy wrote to me about how he was going to go out on his motorcycle one night. i was reading the e-mail quickly, and i thought he wrote “i might dress in full feathers.”
this sounded somewhat odd to me. full feathers? is he a native americn indian, proud of his heritage, and only rides his bike in a big headdress? is this some kind of Illini fan thing? But i didn’t think much about it till i finally wrote back to him, and re-read the e-mail more carefully. full LEATHERS is what he wrote, not full FEATHERS.
that’s all the random thoughts in my head right at the moment.
actually, there are MANY more, but that’s enough for now anyway.
ok then,
grace all over the map as usual.
Apr. 19, 2005
lots of activity today
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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9:21 pm
here’s the first photo taken today at the GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION for the abraham lincoln museum. i took many, many photos, and will eventually show you some more.
me and four lincolns
ok, wait, here’s a couple more of them, while i’m at it:
our president
snipers and press and crowd
abe on the phone
that is all for now.
ok then,
grace very patriotic and also slightly sunburned from sitting in the sun at the celebration for hours today.
Apr. 18, 2005
this is for christine...
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11:28 pm
...who said she loves the photos of the show that i’ve been posting, and she WISHES she would have come to see it.
first night of rehearsal
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11:11 pm
this was the first night of “paint your wagon” rehearsals. let me just say that the play is a little weird. the leading man, ben, buys a wife from a mormon guy who has two wives who don’t get along so well. and after a while, ben, who has appeared to be pretty darn happy with his purchased wife, ends up selling her to somebody else, but then she runs away with a third guy anyway.
damn, now i’ve ruined the whole thing for you. please come to the show anyway. it doesn’t open till june 10th, a million years from now, so maybe you’ll have forgotten this strange bit of plot.
anyway, there’s some really nice music in the show, although it seems that the only song i get to take part in is one about a can of beans. yeah. oh well, i’m mostly looking forward to taking that lovely drive out to new salem and performing (very briefly) on their cool outdoor stage. i plan on going to rehearsals out there early, just so i can walk around a lot.
my weekend was busy. the race went well. i’m going to write about it for the may edition of the spfld roadrunner’s newsletter. something kind of stupid happened to me (hard as that may be to imagine). but the race itself went pretty well, although i was then pretty tired for the rest of the day. neither jim nor i won the race, but jim ran quite fast, and i think i ran faster than i ever have. as usual, plenty of people kept passing me throughout the race, but in the last few blocks, there was this one tall, very athletic man up ahead of me. some guy on the sidelines kept cheering him on, and i thought, “hey, how about ME?” his cheering compelled me to run faster, and i decided i could pass this very fit man, and i did! i was pretty darn shocked that i managed to beat him.
I was kind of surly when walking around looking at the stuff going on at the old state capitol, though. tired and dehydrated, and i was most annoyed that none of the millions of food vendors was selling beverages with ice. i just wanted a cold drink with ice. i didn’t think it was too much to ask. but it was. i refused a sip of my niece’s lukewarm diet pepsi.
the best thing i saw was this collection of abe portraits drawn by schoolkids. some were well done; many were just hilarious. the exhibit is down in the basement of the old state capitol, not very well publicized and i’m afraid most people won’t see it. i think it’s going to be there for a while, though, so you should check it out.
and tomorrow is the VERY BIG DAY, when we go to the museum dedication. on my way to work today i saw tons of media trucks from all over the place. it should be exciting and interesting and different. and hopefully not just hot and annoying and boring, sitting around for hours waiting for the thing to start. maybe we should bring some cards. they’re not banning cards, as far as i know.
gee, it seems that wednesday is going to be a letdown, after the hoopla surrounding tomorrow. perhaps it would be a good day to stay in bed.
which is where i should be right now, as a matter of fact.
i saw david sedaris last night at sangamon auditorium. he was pretty funny, although i’d read a couple of the things he performed, but he did make them more entertaining because he’s an excellent reader. i think that’s my new goal in life (whoops, did i have an old goal? i’m sure i must have, but i can’t remember what it could be), to be an excellent reader.
actually, technically, i am in bed already, but i have to lie down and turn out the light and try to CLEAR MY MIND OF ALL THOUGHTS, which is always much much more vexing and difficult than it looks.
i ran AND swam this morning, and cleaned house for two hours, and washed both of mom and dad’s dogs, so you’d think i’d have no problem sleeping all through the entire night, until morning. but one thing that definitely makes it hard to sleep is knowing that i have to GET UP EARLY.
but you never know, maybe tonight is the beginning of a new shift in my entire psyche and being, and i’ll sleep through the night and i’ll have an unexpectedly fabulous day tomorrow, nothing horrible or embarrasing will happen to me, no tears will be shed, i won’t fall down or bruise any part of my body (i have a particularly painful bruise and perhaps a chipped bone on my hand today), and no crazy insane thoughts will be racing through my mind every damn second of the day...
but i’m dreaming too big here. i’d be pretty happy with just sleeping through the night.
ok then, sweet dreams,
grace, ever hopeful
Apr. 15, 2005
friday the 15th of april
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11:54 am
and a beautiful day it is, sunny, warm, perfect. life is good.
if you live here in spfld, have you listened to the NEW 93.9 fm, ABE RADIO? i think the call letters are wabz. right now they’re playing TEN THOUSAND SONGS IN A ROW, commercial free. every time i turn on the radio and they say that, i try to figure just how many days of programming that would be, but it’s too much math for my brain. a lot of days, that’s what i’m guessing.
anyway, i like to listen to this station sometimes, because i actually know many of the songs. it surprises me to realize how many songs i know, when i thought i only knew maybe 10. their slogan is WE PLAY ANYTHING. or maybe it’s WE PLAY EVERYTHING, i can’t remember. sometimes they say retarded things like “abe would want to play EVERYTHING,” some lame correlation about lincoln and freedom and all of that.
but like i said, no commercials, and lots of good music. maybe it’s 80’s music? i don’t know, all i know is that i like it.
i’m about to go take my flyers around. it’s all about lincoln and the upcoming HOOPLA. i saw the chairs set up in the park across from the museum this morning. there are supposedly 1,400 chairs. i wanted to stop and put a little “reserved” sign on a couple of chairs, so i won’t have to get there quite so early on tuesday morning. but i figured it would blow away.
i bet, though, if i came back with some big piece of bunting, or rope, and a great big reserved sign, something that looks official, that would confuse people, and nobody else would sit in it and the workers wouldn’t throw it away.
but that’s too much trouble on a sunny afternoon, and besides, i have no rope or bunting in my car.
i do have a massage chair in the trunk, but i bet they won’t let me carry that onto the grounds.
on the other hand, massage chairs weren’t listed in the list of things you are FORBIDDEN TO BRING WITH YOU. the list includes weapons of all sorts, food, umbrellas, and a bunch of other stuff. backpacks. you just can’t take a backpack anywhere these days, can you? but there’s no mention of no massage chairs. if i brought it with me, i could set it up and give people massages, i bet i could make a tidy profit while waiting hours and hours for the event to start.
i’m going to run in a 5k race tomorrow morning. last night i decided i WAS NOT going to run in the race, but this morning i thought, why not? i called my brother-in-law jim and asked him if he’d like to do it with me, and he said yes. i was surprised about this, because although he used to do all kinds of races, he was a race addicts, running, triathlons, everything, he hasn’t been doing that anymore.
but he was enthusiastic, and that’s good for me because now i won’t be able to back out at the last minute, when i wake up too many times tonight and can’t get back to sleep and obsess about how i’m not going to get my required 8-9 hours of sleep. it does sound fun, actually - for one thing, 5k is only 3.1 miles, which is almost nothing, and for another thing, the course is all around downtown, which should be entertaining and different.
jim told me that once, a while ago, he won SECOND OVERALL in this race. he ran sub-6 miles. that’s running ONE MILE in LESS THAN SIX MINUTES, in case you’re not race-knowledgeable.
yeah, fast. jim bemoaned the fact that he’s not that fast anymore. i told him that i’m really really trying to emphathize with him, but it’s difficult for me. i mean, at this point i won’t even admit that i’m actually a “runner.” i mean, i do jog around a lot, but i certainly don’t look like a REAL runner, those skinny, legs of steel people, long and lean. and my goal is never to beat anybody, it’s just mostly not to pass out while running.
i have to admit that in the few races i’ve done, i have felt competitive all of a sudden, mostly because of all the old crippled one-legged people who passed me by, and this makes me run faster than i normally do (very slowly), and then i’m totally tired at the end. the last time this happened was at the jingle bell run last december, in which i didn’t get any homemade chocolate chip cookies at the end because i was too tired from the running. crazy.
anyway, tomorrow morning should be fun. afterwards, there will many many activities all over the place, and i’m sure it will be good.
i’m not going to run barefoot, by the way. last night there was a story on NPR about a barefoot runner from Huntington Beach, CA who is going to run in the Boston Marathon. He’s run something like either 12,000 or 20,000 miles already without shoes. he said that yeah, you do get rocks and stuff and GLASS in your feet, but it’s not bad, really.
GLASS IN YOUR FEET IS BAD.
that’s just my opinion.
then they interviewed a podiatrist who said that he wouldn’t recommend that any of his patients run barefoot. maybe because of GLASS. not to mention POTHOLES. etc.
he said, basically, that we’re too fat to go shoeless. they did point out that people used to run around without shoes, which is true. but they didn’t have shoe stores back then, either, so they were much harder to procure. plus now that we definitely have shoe stores FILLED with shoes, it makes sense to put them on your feet. that’s all i’m saying. i mean, that logic is like saying that well, we didn’t have FIRE a long time ago, so we might as well eat raw food all the time. cauze our ancestors lived without it. yeah, but they only lived to be about sixteen, too.
there was also a report about a bad thing you can get if you drink too much water from running. i wrote down the term for the malady, but i seem to have misplaced the scrap of paper that it was on. it’s something like hyponeutrinia, except that’s not it. the gist of it is that if you drink too much water when you run, your body loses too much salt, and this is bad for your kidneys and maybe your liver, various organs, and especially your brain, which you don’t want to start going bad on you.
they said elite runners don’t usually have this problem because they don’t have enough time for drinks of water, but us slowpokes have plenty of time, waddling along, to stop and sip every few feet.
whew, so much information in one day. i must go outside in the fresh air and sunshine now.
ok then,
grace always informative.
Apr. 14, 2005
the night before tax day...
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11:34 pm
ok, i’m pretty sure this is where this blog started LAST YEAR. how is it possible that i’ve been writing this a whole year now? how?
anyway, i just want you to know that tomorrow afternoon there will be new GRACEUNCENSORED FLYERS out and about in spfld, so please go pick one up. the cardologist, recycled records, wienerdog, food fantasies.
my taxes were done EONS ago, all i have to pay is a (GIANT PILE OF MONEY!!!) quarterly estimated tax payment.
that is all for now.
ok then,
grace
Apr. 13, 2005
yet another photo
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10:05 pm
(remember, there are 263 of them!!!)
wednesday night
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10:03 pm
i was going to go to sleep at 9:18, but not yet, i just want to write a little first.
today was historic for me. i ran for an hour and a half, the longest i’ve ever run in my life. it wasn’t bad, actually, except that after about an hour, my knees started to hurt. but the time went by surprisingly quickly, and i didn’t get hit by any cars. most cars steered way over to the other lane, except for one guy in a giant pickup who didn’t want to get over at all.
i don’t feel nearly as bad as i did after the few races i was in last summer. i’m thinking in particular of the Bix, the 7 mile (7K?) race in Iowa, which involved a very very steep hill right at the beginning. and since it was my first race, i ROARED up the hill, and then the rest of the race was quite grim and by the end my quads were screaming in pain and inside my head i was screaming all kinds of bad things, hating that i’d ever agreed to run in some dumb race. the free twinkies at the end barely made up for the agony. luckily, it’s impossible for me to stay mad for more than about 16 minutes, so, two twinkies later, i was just fine.
but today, i ran farther, and even though there was no race pressure, i’m still very proud of this accomplishment.
but that’s why i’m so sleepy now, i think.
also, i had two glasses of wine at dinner, and then i drove on the highway and roared past a cop sitting at the side of the road, i was going 80, but luckily he wasn’t interested in me.
when i reached my destination, i had a third glass of wine, and i think that’s what put me over the top, fatigue-wise. or maybe it’s really the long run.
i guess i can run in a half-marathon now, and then i can progress to a real marathon. and then i’ll be a marathon runner, and that is exciting, because i assume that means i’ll automatically be very thin, because i don’t know any marathon runners who aren’t thin. actually, i don’t really know any marathon runners personally, but the people i see who run marathons are quite thin.
i can’t believe it’s wednesday night already. i’m feeling unnecessarily melancholy at the moment, and so i must sleep, in order to correct the badness that encroaches on my brain.
ok ok ok,
grace ever unstable but always outwardly cheerful nonetheless
Apr. 11, 2005
a few more show photos
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8:51 pm
i’m sorry if you missed the play...
made it through monday...
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8:45 pm
i finally, finally got to sleep at about 4:30. and woke up at 7:30, and was the 62nd person in line for the museum opening gala celebration. and, because of my perserverance, i got two fancy blue tickets. they were giving away 200 blue tickets, which means that you get to sit down to watch the festivities. the rest are green tix, meaning you have to stand for hours.
i felt very excited about snagging the blue tickets. getting up early can have its rewards. and i’ll have to get up even earlier next tuesday, because it starts at 10, but you have to get there way ahead of time in order to get a good seat.
i still don’t know what, exactly, this ceremony is going to involve, but i guess i’ll find out. i’m sure a band or two will play.
the rest of the day was busy. i rode my bike all the way around the lake, but i don’t think i want to do that anymore because there were many car whizzing way too close to me, not to mention trucks.
speaking of trucks - this afternoon i was attempting to speed to work and got behind a semi that was creeping along. in big letters on the back was STUDENT DRIVER. i finally passed it, and sure enough, it was an old guy in red suspenders learning to drive a semi, there on the highway. i can check that off the list of things i wish i could learn in my life.
that is all for now. i hope your monday was tolerable.
ok then,
grace made it through yet one more day.
surly at 3:35 a.m.
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4:12 am
i can’t think of a more surly time than the middle of the night on sunday.
i woke up at 2. kept thinking that surely, SURELY, i’d fall back asleep, because i was lying here feeling very tired. i had a busy day. well, i went running for a long time, anyway.
by three, i was bored with not sleeping. so i thought i’d turn on the light and read.
3:35 a.m. wide awake now. what am i supposed to do? i’m not getting out of bed, that’s all i know. i could get up and take a shower and get dressed and go to the convention center and start standing in line for tickets to the Lincoln Museum grand opening. they start giving them away at 9:30 a.m., six short hours from now, and i bet i’d be the first person in line.
the thing that really sucks is that when i actually have to get up, at 7:30 or whenever in order to get in line early, i’ll be SO tired.
anticipatory tiredness. no WONDER i want to nap all the time.
i heard a motorcycle roar past a few minutes ago. it was actually more like chug-chug-chugging and i wondered if it would make it home. why weren’t they in bed already, anyway? i hope they get their bike fixed, and soon, because it didn’t sound good.
the fundraiser on saturday night was ghastly. dreadful. a complete waste of getting dressed up. boring. i stayed less than an hour.
the evening did get better, though; randy and i went to cheddar’s, which isn’t bad and had a great drink special. a little girl in the bathroom was dazzled by my outfit, which was slightly over the top for cheddar’s but at that point it didn’t matter at all. perhaps someday i’ll get to wear it somewhere that’s actually fun.
not that it wasn’t fun at cheddar’s. except as i sat there, i realized that my feet were hurting in my pointy high-heeled shoes, even though all i was doing was sitting down. wow, what if i’d attempting dancing in them?
afterwards, we went to randy’s and i made him loan me some sweats and a big soft warm shirt, and we played boggle. he beat me SO BAD - in one round he got 38 points. the final score was 102 to 45. not pretty. but at least it made randy happy. and i was glad because i was wearing soft comfy clothes and not at a fundraiser of any kind.
today when i went running, i saw some bears. because i ran by the zoo. this amused me; i wonder how many people can say that they saw bears while running? as opposed to running from bears, which wouldn’t have been as nice.
this afternoon (technically YESTERDAY afternoon), i went to see the the spfld ballet company’s “romeo and juliet” at Sangamon Auditorium. I had my doubts about spending two hours inside on such a beautiful day, but it was more than worth it. i’ve only seen a couple of ballets in my life, but this one was wonderful. it was moving, touching, the dancing was excellent. the guy who played romeo was only 18, which was surprising to me, because he was so poised and such an incredible dancer. juliet, also, was a joy to watch. they made everything look so completely effortless, ands the emotion they conveyed was really something.
there was quite a bit of sword fighting in the production. i happen to be acquainted with the fellow who did the fencing choreography, but i promise i’m not being biased when i say it was quite impressive, full of drama and action. the fighters looked like they’d been doing it for years, when i know for a fact that they just learned how. at one point, the fighting became so violent that somebody’s sword BROKE and clattered to the ground, and most people thought this had been rehearsed. but nope, they weren’t supposed to break the swords, but it added even more drama to the scene.
my only criticism of the ballet is the ending. romeo comes in and juliet looks dead and he’s horribly depressed because he thinks she’s dead so he kills himself by drinking poison and then she wakes up and is depressed because HE’S dead, so she stabs herself. in case you weren’t familiar with this plotline because you’ve been living in a cave all your life.
but instead, sometime i’d like to see a version of R & J where she drinks the knockout potion and falls asleep but romeo comes in and shakes her, and instead of getting all depressed and killing himself, he just keeps shaking her and she jumps up and gives him a big kiss and he carries her off and they run away to Mexico where those Montagues and Capulets won’t hassle them anymore and they live happily ever after.
or, if you insisted on more drama, he could be all depressed thinking she’s dead, and he can’t wake her, and so he picks up his own poison and is ABOUT TO DRINK IT, but then she JUMPS UP AND KNOCKS THE BOTTLE OUT OF HIS HAND.
alternately, he could drink the poison and she could wake up and give him some syrup of ipecac, the stuff that makes you throw up and then he’d be all better, but this wouldn’t be as poetic and lovely, romeo throwing up all over the stage. so let’s go with the other option.
just a thought. because when the ballet was over, i was moved and touched and loved seeing it, but at the same time i felt too sad about the tragedy of the lovers and all of that, and that got me thinking about the difficulty of just trying to live every day and find a little happiness, not to mention the utter impossibility of true love and happily ever after, so i started trudging home feeling fairly blue, in that remarkable way i have of making myself sad at the drop of a hat.
i was walking home because it wasn’t very far, but then somebody pulled up and gave me a ride, not a stranger, but a gentle and kind soul who swooped in and rescued me, and took me out for a margarita and chips-n-salsa, eerily similiar to my idea about going off to mexico, by the way, and so everything did turn out happily ever after, after all, for me, anyway.
at least for a good hour or so.
ok then,
grace at 4:08 a.m., SURELY i’m tired enough now to sleep a few more hours...
Apr. 09, 2005
saturday afternoon, blonde
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4:43 pm
i was on the highway driving home this afternoon, and i roared past a semi. the driver honked at me, and as i looked in the rearview mirror, he waved, and then blew me a kiss.
i attribute this to my newly-blonde hair, which i’m getting more used to every day.
and it’s clearly very popular with the truckers.
the fundraiser last night did, indeed, have very good wine, and good piano music. and the food looked good, but i only ate a couple of pieces of shrimp because i spent a long portion of yesterday afternoon on the patio at TGIFriday’s, eating lunch and enjoying the sunny, warm afternoon.
lunch included splitting an ENORMOUS CHOCOLATE DESSERT which involved big brownies, perhaps eight or nine of them, plus hot fudge sauce, caramel, whipped cream, and gobs of everything sugary and fattening. i’ll have you know that this dessert was not my idea at all. but on the other hand, there’s a pretty good chance that my luncheon companion ordered it because he figured i’d love it. which i did. but i didn’t even eat half of it, which i was slightly proud of, but only slightly, because like i said, i then wasn’t hungry for the rest of the day and night.
i’m supposed to be going to ANOTHER fundraiser in an hour. i have to actually be there in an hour, and i really want to take a nap, of course. 4:30 is my peak sleepy time during the day. so if i start right NOW, i could at least close my eyes for 20 minutes or so. then i just have to throw on my cute new green outfit, and that shouldn’t take more than maybe 10 minutes of preparation. it’s too bad that i’ve been dying to wear this outfit since i got it for xmas, but now i’d much rather sit here in my green shorts and t-shirt and do nothing for the remainder of the day.
perk up there, grace! go out, mingle! schmooze! have fun!
yeah yeah yeah.
today we had a meeting for the play i’m going to be in at new salem this summer, “paint your wagon.” i hope it’s a lot of fun. I really, really hope this.
here’s another “you can’t take it with you” photo:
Ok, i imagine this will be the last fundraiser for the year for me, personally. but then again, you never know.
mingle mingle mingle.
ok then,
grace not in the mood for much of anything especially chatting while wearing lipstick.
Apr. 07, 2005
thursday night...
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11:36 pm
...but wait, what happened to wednesday? i meant to write yesterday, but somehow the time slipped away.
here’s one more glamour photo from the play:
leaping about
That’s one of my especially graceful moments, in full professional high-quality ballet regalia.
WHEW, i’m tired, why can’t i start writing earlier in the day? because randy invited me over to dinner, chicken curry and rolls and salad (randy makes the best salad ever), and then we played a card game called “marvin,” which you’ve probably never heard of, but you might have played. we call it marvin because that’s what ann calls it because she couldn’t remember the actual name, but that’s the name of the guy who taught it to her. it’s a fun card game, plus you don’t have to concentrate terribly hard or think too much, which i’d frown upon on a thursday night.
we watched an old episode of “friends,” an early one where rachel admits to ross that she has feelings for him, and then they fight, and she slams and locks the diner door, but then he stands there in the rain and she unlocks the door and throws it open and they kiss and it’s very romantic. when it started, i thought i hadn’t seen that episode, but i realized i’d not seen the beginning.
when i lived in LA, i’d make fun of christine for watching friends because i thought it was stupid and dumb with terrible acting. but then i started watching, and then i watched all the episodes, all the reruns, but i feel that surely there must be one or two out there that i haven’t seen yet. i’ll have to go to randy’s more often to watch it, because when i’m at home, i just can’t motivate myself to turn on the TV. it involves searching for too many remotes, for one thing.
anyway, the air force concert band - well, it lasted about a million hours. it was at the convention center, and there was no nice lighting, just the harsh convention lights. i thought the music would be a little...lighter...but instead it was so pretty heavy classical stuff. and like i said, a million hours. it was a free concert, and i assumed it might last an hour or an hour and a half. but it began at 7:30 and wasn’t over till TEN, at which point i was horribly tired.
but they are accomplished musicians, and i’d like to see them in a better lit place, playing music that i’m more familiar with. there was a piccolo soloist during one of the numbers, and i decided i’d like to learn how to play the piccolo. it was such a teeny tiny instrument, and it looked pretty easy. i’m sure it was harder than it looked, but it would be so nice to play an instrument that you could carry around in your purse (maybe a fairly large purse), and you could just pull it out and start playing. it reminded me of the music you’d hear in a meadow somewhere, somebody dancing around in a sunlit meadow playing a piccolo.
i was at the UIS campus this afternoon, and i noticed that there were no student in sight anywhere. is it spring break? are there actually students attending the university? just wondering.
i must sleep now, even though i know that there’s at least one other thing i wanted to mention tonight. i have a very busy day tomorrow, including some benefit fundraiser kind of thing, where they’re promising good wine and piano music. so we’ll just see about that.
ok then,
grace slightly scattered tonight but not in a bad way, necessarily.
Apr. 05, 2005
tuesday night
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10:08 pm
if i don’t have a plan, i get nothing done. i got nothing done tonight.
i got the cd of the cast photos from “you can’t take it with you” in the mail today. 263 photos. that’s a lot of photos. if i knew how to do it, i could put some of them in some kind of link here and you could look at them. there are so many that if you click through them, it’s like watching the show, with no sound.
the best i can do right now is show you a few of them. here’s one:
one of my many professional-quality ballet moves
here’s another one:
after we’ve been to the movies
that’s all for now. only 261 more to go. there are so very many photos, it seems somewhat daunting to try to manage them. but i’ll do my best.
tuesday, nothing much to report for tuesday, except that the wienerdogs were delicious, and the wienerdog boys, rob and mark, didn’t have the opportunity to harass me too much because my mom was with me, and also, there were many people in the restaurant.
i did some weight machines this afternoon even though i sort of pulled my back yesterday washing too many windows. this is the kind of retarded behavior that i’m always lecturing people not to do, and yet i do it myself. actually, my back doesn’t feel so bad right now and who knows, maybe i’ll be able to get out of bed tomorrow.
if not, i’ll stay in bed and read all the stuff that i keep meaning to read. i don’t read that much because i always feel that there are other things i should be doing, and by the time i decide to finally SIT DOWN and read, i’m too tired and can’t focus.
but maybe tomorrow, especially if i can’t get out of bed. when i was a kid, all i did was read, all the time.
i feel very bad because i forgot to vote today. after working for a political consulting firm in LA, where i was an “office manager” but did nothing most of the time, nobody to actually manage but i did get to order whatever office supplies i needed whenever i wanted, i feel that i MUST VOTE, no matter what.
but i forgot. no good excuse or anything. oh well, hopefully good things happened in the very important elections despite my slacker-ness.
whew, i’m tired.
ok then,
grace who will certainly have a much better plan for tomorrow, including going to see the AIR FORCE BAND, a free concert tomorrow night that should be fun-n-entertaining.
the agony of defeat...
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11:44 am
first, i’d just like to note that on sunday, when i posted that photo of my legs, my plan was to walk around and find a bunch of different images of spring, and put them all up here. instead, i was too lazy, and only managed to take the photo of my legs because they happen to be attached to my body.
last evening, from 6:30 to 7:10, i ran on the lake road. and each and every car that passed contained one (1) couple dressed in orange t-shirts or sweatshirts. every single one of them.
soon, i decided that maybe it was actually the same couple, driving down the road and stopping and hopping into a different car.
come to think of it, most of the cars were big black SUV’s, so maybe it was actually the same car, back and forth and back and forth.
i assume they were all going to BLOWOUT ILLINI BASKETBALL PARTIES, and i was sad for approximately one nanosecond that i hadn’t been invited to any basketball parties.
i was much happier running on the lake road.
i did watch most of the game, and it was pretty sad. i had a bad feeling throughout; why couldn’t they just GET MORE BASKETS??? i didn’t want to watch till the bitter end, but i did.
before the game started, an old boyfriend called to tell me he would be watching the game and rooting for the illini in my place, since he assumed i wouldn’t be doing so. but it didn’t do him any good after all, to cheer.
this is one of the problems with watching sporting events, the agony of defeat. the annoyance that they could lose.
also, the number of commercials is highly annoying.
whew, that’s all the sports i’m going to watch for a long time now. maybe i’ll go to a baseball game this summer; at least that’s out in the fresh air. my friend Thad told me that Washington D.C. now has its own ball team, the Nationals, and he’s pretty excited about that. i don’t know if i’d want to go all the way to D.C. to watch a game, though.
sunday night i took a walk through washington park with mom and amy and my niece and a couple of dogs. i don’t think i’ve ever walked through the park at night, and i liked it. as we walked toward the park, we passed houses with the glow of the TV shining through the windows. i wanted to knock on their doors and invite them to join us, but i figured they’d be alarmed, with all the people and the crazy dogs. but that would be nice, weekly nighttime excursions through the park.
somebody commented to me that all those people are letting life pass them by, watching the electronic images flicker on their screens as i’m out in the world actually participating. i do think that’s true, but i also think that for some people, tv is entertainment, and an easy escape, a way to unwind after a trying day. but on the other hand, a good walk would be more satisfying, plus of course good for you. but i’m not going to lecture you. except christine, who keeps telling me she knows she SHOULD work out, but doesn’t, and doesn’t have any good excuse for not doing it.
but i don’t have a good excuse for most of the things i do, either. plus she’s very busy re-designing my website because she says it could be MUCH BETTER, so certainly she has no time for exercising! today she told me that it’s possible to ski in denver as late as june, which seems horrible to me, personally.
if you recall, a while ago i asked for a (very belated) ice cream cone, and i immediately got it. after that, a nice reader wrote to me and offered to take me out to dinner. Well, he sounds nice, but of course he COULD be some insane mass-murdering lunatic who happens to like my site. i do appreciate the offer, lunatic or not. therefore, i’m positive that the offer of a lovely trip will be forthcoming from somebody somewhere. i feel very calm and patient about this.
my friend john just finished building his own web site, and i noticed that he has a link to my site from his. that was certainly nice of him. i’ll have to link his site to mine, but maybe that will be something christine will have to do, linking other sites to mine? or at least telling me how to do it. i’d include john’s site right here, except i can’t remember what it’s called. and then, i suppose i’ll have to be more dilligent about trying to look at other sites, in order to include them, too. whew, sounds like a lot of work. christine has encouraged me to look at other peoples' sites, but i haven’t done it.
Like her and the exercise, i have no excuse.
but everything is still good.
ok then,
grace about to walk to wienerdog for a tasty (and so nutritious) lunch.
Apr. 04, 2005
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005, 4:42 p.m.
[
General ] -
grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
8:29 am
Here I’ll sit...
I’m sitting here on the dock, it’s sunny and gorgeous and I’m going to stay here till the end of October. I’m writing this by hand, and when I have to go type it into the computer I’ll be annoyed because I won’t be able to read my own writing. But that’s OK now, because EVERYTHING is OK now.
I take that back. Everything is not OK. Everything is FANTASTIC.
Because it’s sunny and warm and gorgeous.
Why, exactly, am I living in a place where it’s grey and cold and miserable for many months? Late next fall, I must re-evaluate my whole life and living situation.
I’ll do it when I finally leave the dock.
Today I did some weight-lifting, then I washed and waxed my car, then I ran for 30 minutes. As I ran home, I thought, nwo I want to take a bike ride, and maybe go for a swim…but no, the lake is too chilly still, I suspect.
Actually, I have to confess something – as I ran, some motorcycles passed me. And I thought, “I’d love to go on a motorcycle ride.”
This is extraordinarily strange behavior for me; I’m generally fairly terrified of the entire motorcycle experience. You’re way too exposed, the possibility of crashing and the motorcycle spontaneously bursting into flames seems too likely to me.
I know this doesn’t happen, at least not all the time. The last time I was on a motorcycle, I felt like the helmet was squashing my head. And it was awfully…scary. I would have trusted the driver with my life (and I was!); I knew he wasn’t going to pop any wheelies or anything. But when the ride was over, I felt like I’d had a workout, from the sheer exertion of trying to will the driver not to tip over and crash all my bones under the bike.
That’s what makes it particularly odd, this sudden desire for a motorcycle ride. Maybe it’s because the cyclists that I saw were on the lake road, and they seemed to be having such a great, easygoing time. And also, I felt it would be nice to cruise along and enjoy the view without any physical exertion involved. Not that my run wasn’t fine, but it’d be nice to glide along on somebody else’s power.
Nobody’s called me, though, and asked if I’d like a motorcycle ride yet today, so I’m perfectly content to sit here on the dock, feeling the sun on my back.
Maybe if I sit here and meditate about a motorcycle ride, it will happen. Or better yet, if I sit here and let all thoughts slip out of my head, this crazy yearning for a ride will pass.
Because really, although the idea of the ride is appealing, I fear that the actuality might be fraught with peril.
If I get really ambitious, I could always ride my bike, coasting as much as possible.
A guy in a fishing boat just floated past. We had a nice chat. And a waverunner is buzzing across the water now. That’s what I’ll do – my brother just bought a new waverunner, and I’ll have to take it for a spin. I like waveruners because they’re the same idea as a motorcycle, except if you tip over (most people don’t, but I almost always do, sometimes just sitting there going nowhere), all you get is wet. And I could roar around like a maniac if I choose, or I could just putt putt putt around the lake in a leisurely fashion.
Luckily, David’s waverunner isn’t in the water yet, so I’ll continue to sit here enjoying the day. And when the waverunner does appear, I’ll be first in line, ready to climb aboard.
Spring, and life is mighty good.
Ok then,
Grace in love with warmth and sunshine
Apr. 01, 2005
friday!
[
General ] -
grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
4:07 pm
how about that? you wait long enough, and friday gets here, every single week, it seems like.
my day is done, not really a “work” day, but a few work activities, then some work-like activities were accomplished. i printed out my new column and took it around again.
it’s at Food Fantasies, Wienerdog, the Cardologist, and Recycled Records. Twice a month, from now on.
the only place that people seem to be crazy to pick them up are at Food Fantasies. Or maybe there’s one person who comes in there and takes them all, i don’t know, all i know is it was quite satisfying that people had taken every last one.
surely SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE can help me figure out how to get more exposure in the world.
while i was in the process of marching around downtown taking them around, i saw phil walking down the street, and was excited to give him one, since i talk about him in it. and then, at the Wienerdog, there was richard norton smith himself! i should have said, “hi, my name is grace smith, we’re probably related, aren’t we?” (because all smiths surely must be related somehow although my last name should actually rightfully be swenson, not smith at all, but there you are).
anyway, i just tried to smile in a very frienly way at him, and i introduced myself and gave him a flyer, which he folded up and i hope didn’t promptly throw away. he didn’t throw it away in front of me, which was something. i told him that i’m a friend of phil’s, which i’d assume would mean SOMETHING to the man, but on the other hand probably everbody in town is claiming to be a friend of phil’s. and besides, i hear that the media are swooping down on the library from points all over the globe, so he’s a very busy man, no time for a little levity in his day.
but on the other hand, he took time out for a (tasty, delicious and nutritious) Wienerdog, so why couldn’t he take a few minutes to read something funny?
i’m about to take a little nap. yesterday i napped for all of 10 minutes, but it did a lot of good.
i really don’t nap all the time, even though it might appear that way. mostly, i’m just hoping for a nap, or imagining that i’ll have time for a nap, or debating about napping, worrying that it might interfere with my already sketchy sleep patterns.
i DO have time to nap, though, certainly more time than most people.
the only problem with napping when it’s warm out is that i’m inside when i should be OUTSIDE ENJOYING THE WEATHER because even though it’s getting warm and the buds are appearing everywhere, it WILL be cold and wintry again eventually, there’s nothing I can do about it.
except spending lots of time next winter someplace warm, but i don’t know if that’s realistic at this time.
but never say never. never EVER say never.
maybe i sould get a hammock and string it up outside. would it be comfortable enough to sleep in? Aren’t there several comic strip characters who are always sleeping in hammocks? Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace, and Dagwood Bumstead, and a couple of others? I wonder why there are never any females lolling around in hammocks in the funnies.
my favorite comic, by the way, used to be “mutts,” because it was always amusing and the animals were so cute. But lately it just doesn’t seem so funny anymore, which is a darn shame. i read the funnies every single day, but i’m usually disappointed, but i won’t give up hope.
have i mentioned that i’m a moronic optimist? more and more every day.
i’d like to say more right now, but the nap is calling me.
ok then,
grace who doesn’t sleep ALL the time, and wouldn’t if i could because then i’d miss everything else.
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