I don't know if you knew this, but facebook is a news source. I was watching kvue last night, and they posted a quote from the woman who found the ricin from her facebook page. So, facebook is not a complete waste of time, but a credible source from which we get our news. FYI.

Also, I am switching to aim.

leg keeps getting better

But is not totally well. I jogged about 10 steps in the hall to the water fountain. Nope.

Well, what I was thinking earlier this week was that at almost 34 years of age, at some point I think it would be lecherous for me to have a crush on a 22 year old. However, physically, I feel 22. I think, I don't know because I was so absolutely miserable and out of it at 22. Mentally, things just get better and better. Clearly, I am still plagued with obsessive thoughts, but I am learning that this is human, and not pathological.

Going to try to volunteer at the short course meet as my birthday present to myself. Also, maybe some waxing and facial. TMI?

I am up at school working on my proposal. I am really getting into it and wonder what I will do when I finish.

Oh, yeah. I am giving up facebook for lent - which starts Thursday - Jesus said it was ok to postpone it.
So, I imagine my blog will be frequently updated.

almost 34

much better

Leg is getting much better.
I keep thinking about it, and I think the main thing is I didn't want to be a big failure because I am supposed to be the teacher who runs fast and has great races. I didn't want to have to tell everyone I didn't start the race, so I started it. Then, I didn't want to have to tell everyone I dnfed, so I kept running beyond the point of injury.
I can swim, now, and ride my trainer with no pain.
I can almost walk normally. It's silly. My hip flexors are on fire from walking weird. My infraspinatus' are starting to recover.
Yes, I am supposed to be working on my proposal right this second.

on account of I am still an addict!

I started to go up to my office yesterday. Pushing the gas pedal and brake was painful, as was walking, and standing on the bum leg. Brad said I looked similar to Jar Jar Binks initiating movement. Yes, very sympathetic. (But, Brad does get huge props for taking us to the race in terrible traffic as well as picking up a weepy and cold MH on Red River.)
Anyway, I called the UT nurse line and they said come in. I did. They did xrays. No stress fracture. That was my biggest fear. They did a blood test for a marker of compartment syndrome, the only other major concern. Nope.
So, they said go see an orthopod today. Meanwhile, I am walking around on crutches. This is extremely challenging. My infraspinatus muscles are extremely fatigued. As are my forearms, etc.
Anyway, glad to have the use of all 4 limbs. Find out what the deal is later this afternoon.
I need to double check the adapted DSMIV diagnostic questions for exercise dependence. I think because I didn't go running today, I am in the clear.

not so great

I was going to say I stunk it up at the marathon, but that is not true. I was running a good pace - 7:45-8:00 for 20 miles. At mile 10 my right leg was hurting. At mile 13 took more ibuprofen. At mile 18 looked for Brad, but didn't see him. Had a little melt down. At mile 20, it was really hurting, so I stopped at the rec sports center and left an unintelligible message on his cell phone. Fortunately I saw one of my swimming students and called Brad again, and he came and picked me up.
The weather was good, I felt good, my quads felt good, I could have kept going except for pain in shin and peroneous muscles.
If it doesn't get better, I will go to doc.
I think it's time to turn the focus back to the 400 IM.
I was thinking I need to see how this experience will benefit others. I had a slew of PR's and great races. Then, a DNF at CDA, then had a medium 5k, a bad 5k, a good 50k, now another DNF. i suppose if it were PR after PR, I wouldn't be mortal, right?

Stewart Smalley/MJ dialogue

When Michael Jordan was awesome he was on SNL with Stewart Smalley (Al Franken).
SS: Michael, when you are shooting baskets and playing basketball, do you ever think, 'there is no way I can shoot this basket. I am a big fraud. I am not good enough. I can't do it.'?
MJ: No

I am totally tapered. I am rested. 3m was easy to run even faster than I am going to run tomorrow. I have enough fuel. I run well in the cold. I am going to go out conservatively, and I do really well when I go out conservatively. (The only time I am ever conservative!!!) I run well downhill, and it's a mostly downhill course.

I was being super negative nelly earlier, but now, I am thinking Olympic gold medal.
Also, now that I can complete the 400 IM, I decided my winter Olympic gold is slalom ski racing.
I am definitely wearing a helmet, though, because I don't want those gates to hit me in the face.
My nose is too pretty.
OK, a little chamomille tea and I am off to bed. 8:15. AWESOME!

maybe not everyone has

"On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached Sunday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false." from Texas Freedom Network. Good news!

But, I was thinking, maybe not everyone has evolved, e.g. Pat Robertson.

Marathon is Sunday. The right side of my body is not very happy. Maybe from 3M, track, sititng a lot, and the fact that I have been using the left side of my brain so much lately. I am icing, etc. We'll see... Boo. It's supposed to sleet. We'll see.

way to go brazil, seriously

if you don't have cable like we don't, check out jon stewart's monologue on cheney.
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/headlines/index.jhtml

brazil is doing an amazing health ed campaign to coincide with mardi gras.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Sex/story?id=1594079

ok, haven't figured out how to put in links, but you can cut and paste.

making a lot of progress on my dissertation. I am on a roll, and very energized and excited.

however, I woke up in the middle of the night on sunday worrying about training for the IM. kind of silly. I think I will take a little break after the marathon and regroup.

way to go, dick

Well, I was going to seriously make fun of Dick Cheney, but in fact quail apparently are reluctant to fly away even when flushed. So, the fact that he was bird hunting and shot a person is not that strange, because quail don't fly away like ducks do.
However, I think the idiot thing stands as guilt by association.

as in the shroud of

OK, I know I am not the only one who didn't know where Torino was and was too embarassed to ask.
NBC wanted the locale to sound exotic, so they are calling it Torino as the natives do. In AMERICA we call it Turin. As in the shroud of. No, I don't know where that is, either exactly, like in the toe or in the boot, but I do know it's in Italy.
#2 Did you hear Kelly Clarkson won 2 grammies? Reasons number 101 and 102 why I quit pursuing music as a business. Stink a link. Songs in a can. Yes, she has a nice voice, but egads, the American Idol winner winning grammies? That is the bad news at the bottom of the hill that began with Debbie Gibson having the number one album in the country in the 1990's.
#3 Yeah! It's winter!

freight train

I have decided that beginning writing my dissertation proposal is as hard as starting a freight train. I dragged myself up to school after my clients this morning. First chore, organize the desk. That took a good 30 minutes. I have been working for about 3 hours. I did, I think, find or put out leads on the questionnaires I am going to use. That is good. I have also peed about 3 gallons. Writing makes me thirsty, I guess. Well, I should rephrase that, searching Ebsco etc makes me thirsty. Still, the only words I have written are my research questions. I even bought a printer for my office - amazon.com = great deal. It did not, however, come with a printer cable. I thought that was a little odd. I have plenty at home. I am considering coming up here tomorrow, but I also want to hang out with BH. I have had long days this week and haven't seen him much. We did cuddle during ER last night. The cuddling was awesome, but the episode was SAD. Usually, ER is so funny and light.
Marie and I have a short long run tomorrow. Maybe it was the cortisone shot, but I have been running really well for about 2 weeks. I am going to take credit for it and say it's an accumulation of my training and resting, but maybe it is a performance enhancing drug. OK, back to work.

marathon is on!

We ran our marathon pace today as we bandited 3M. We actually ran about 20 seconds per mile faster than we planned, but felt great. It was easy. This is very good news. I feel very happy and confident about the marathon.
Now, I just have to maintain and taper.
Feeling SO much better sinus-wise, too. I got a cortisone shot on Wednesday, and that fairly immediately made my sinuses feel a LOT better.
I actually wrote the RQ's for my dissertation on Friday. Tomorrow is an afternoon planned for writing!

I think I am going to have to retract my previous statement that Alito is reasonable, and just say that he is an excellent lawyer.

Brad and I spent a good deal of the weekend hunkered down trying to learn how to use Quicken. I am so pleased to announce that Brad has moved away from the dark side of microsoft and over to the side of truth and justice that is apple. So, we are trying to get off MS Money and move to Quicken. It is a daunting task. I worked most of the day yesterday at the J, and Brad cleaned the kitchen. He does a much better job of cleaning than I do because he is very thorough. He excavated the toaster oven so that it looks somewhat fit to eat food from. There was much debris from our stoveless year of cooking in the toaster oven. I did a big cook-off last night of ground turkey and vegetarian chili for the next week or so I hope. We are going to try to reduce our grocery spending. That was one of our largest expenses of last year. TAXES were our largest. Boo.

I am going to try this morning, after my clients to go swim. This has not worked very often. If I don't start exercising within the hour I arise, I don't do it.

Alito

I've been listening to the Alito Senate judiciary committee hearings off and on. Coburn from OK is extremely scary!!!! I hate to say it, but Ted Kennedy is a screwball. And, the other shocker is, from what Alito has said so far, he seems extremely reasonable. All the senators are articulate, but Alito himself is very impressive. Brad pointed out he has been a practicing lawyer and judge for a long time, whereas the senators have been stuck talking with each other for however many years. So, I guess Alito has had some practice. I just wish we knew what he was going to do regarding Roe v Wade. (Go to Coburn's website. NUTJOB). http://coburn.senate.gov/

I asked Stacy what recused meant and she gave me an amusing example. Alito keeps talking about recusing himself from cases, which I gathered from context had something to do with his taking himself off a case, but I knew Stacy could give me a legal description.

"a judge is recused when she is disqualified (or disqualifies herself)
from hearing the case because of self-interest, bias, or prejudice.

for instance, if i were the judge and i was assigned a case in which
you were sued for waking up too early, i'd be recused from the case
because (1) i'm your friend and i'm biased and (2) i am prejudiced
because i am predisposed to think that you are GUILTY. ; )

usually, a judge will recuse him or herself when they know they have
self-interest (maybe they are a major shareholder of a corporation that
is being sued or their father is on the board of directors of a company
that is being sued)."

Speaking of intolerance

Just got an email from a fellow student regarding the Gender and Sexuality Student Center on campus. Some intolerant bozos want to withdraw student funding of the center and require that it be privately funded. If I have to pay for countless things I don't use on campus - all the courts that use balls, all the buildings except Bellmont and Gregory, watering the grass in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer, keeping the classrooms at sub 0 - then the Young Conservatives of Texas can pay their $2 a semester or whatever it is bring peace and harmony to the world, or at least to the UT campus.
It is not a question of morality. That would be like questioning the morality of someone's being black. It is, however, a civil rights issue. Ga!

I need to do a major service project to restore my faith in humanity. Seriously.

I did swim in the new outdoor Gregory pool today. I wore sunscreen on my face and hands, but not the rest of me. I got a little tan. Weird. It is nice. VERY warm - 82˚. I don't know how they keep it that warm in the winter with no cover - maybe by wasting my student fees!!! Anyway, I also taught coached swim and recycled Coach Steve's workout from this morning which was appropriate because the only swimmer I had was a former LCA swimmer who now goes to Texas.

We already sold the Trooper. I took it in to get something fixed and the mechanic had a buyer.

Don't read this if you haven't seen Brokeback Mountain

I just saw it. It was very good. Very sad! Ugh. People had told me how sad it was, but I didn't know it was going to be that sad. Both actors were very good. Heath Leger's accent was awesome the way it sometimes carried an Australian lilt in the twang. Sheesh. So sad. I can't get over it. I was just going to see some mano y mano, I didn't know it would come at such a tragic price. I want to read the short story. I have heard it was based on a true story. Ugh.
I remember when Matthew Sheppard was murdered in Wyoming. It is very difficult for me to believe that that can happen in the world we live in. I am in such an insulated bubble. I don't know what to do to change it. I guess start by being vocal against intolerance. I am extremely intolerant of people who are intolerant. I think this is totally justified. Maybe I am wrong. It seems as though there is an absolute good and many of us know what it is, but many of us do not. I think that 90% of people in the world could agree on this, could they not? I guess not, because the US is divided 30/70 about the war, still, correct? The fact that George Bush could be elected 2x in the US baffles me. I guess we cannot agree. The fact that the state I live in just passed a law that limits civil rights of some of its citizens baffles me. And we are one of several states. How can this be 2006? I guess what not to do is crawl in a hole and bemoan how bad things are. The thing to do is try to change intolerance, one intolerant person at a time. Can we round them up and send them to tolerance camps?

Tim left a few days ago. We pretty much worked on the house, ate, and exercised the whole time he was here. Now, Brad is back at work, and I am working more at the J.
Swam 3 x 400 IM this morning. My effort level increased with each, but my times stayed the same. Oh, well. Last week Steve gave me a pep talk along the lines that I will not swim as fast as I have ever swum every time I get in the water. I guess I know that is true.
We may get to get a new stove - they make restaurant ones that are 34". If we can put one in a residence, it is going to be awesome. I will definitely have to start a catering business to pay for it, however.
Took all my books and articles up to school so that I can do my writing up there. I hope that is going to work and that after having the office to myself for a year, no one will move in.
I am going to watch at LEAST the first half of the Rosebowl tonight. GO, horns!

Today is the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death. I was reading a pictorial bible book over at Grandmother Crook's house when I found out Lennon had been murdered. She was reading the paper and said, "that rock star died." I am not sure if I knew exactly who the Beatles were, but I remember knowing who he was. She bought me the pictorial bible book because not too long before that, I had quoted my dad to her to tell her there was no God. We had been watching Donny and Marie. She was pretty upset that I thought that (and probably that my dad thought that.) I was just thinking it would be cool to mock tv like Dad did.

Anyway, have my last exam ever today. Woohoo!

Saw some awesome swimming this weekend. Saw Peter Vanderkaay win the mile. It was really beautiful. He didn't kick for about the first 1000, then as the closest guy started to make his move, he started kicking.
Got to see Kaitlin Sandeno, many of the UT Olympians, PVK and some other Michigan badasses. It was really cool.
I get to go to a clinic taught by Neil Walker tomorrow. That is going to be awesome.

Played on Thursday. Several friends came out. It was fun. I enjoyed singing and was surprised at how well my fingers worked. I am going to try to get a gig at that coffee shop inside the Groovy Lube on Guadalupe. They have music.

Brad has redone another window, and I helped a little on one today. That only leaves 3. Awesome.