Mountain Grown. Because it's manly.

Blogging for choice

I'm pro choice because I don't believe that someone should have the right to legislate my body.

I'm pro choice because I do believe that the women who are pregnant, may get pregnant, or have been pregnant should be trusted to make choices, or to have made choices that are sane, logical, and best.

I'm pro choice, because whether you choose to carry a pregnancy, put a child up for adoption, or have an abortion, I believe that you should have that choice. It's not for me to tell you what to do, why would you want to tell me?

My fingers have just thawed.

I'm supposed to be in Houston. But I'm not. I'm here! In my normal state! (Well, normal is a relative term, yes?) When I attempted to fly out yesterday, the ice storms in Houston stopped me. This meant that packing adult clothes and choosing an adult outfit to wear the night before, getting up at four am, leaving the house at five am, driving to the airport, going through security, shoving my quart size ziploc bag of liquids in TSA's face, taking my shoes off, taking my laptop out, consequently almost leaving my laptop behind by forgetting to shove it through the machine, putting my shoes back on, putting my laptop away, putting my liquids away (with one last shake in TSA's face), buying a Cinnabon and orange juice (requisite flying food, as everyone knows), eating said Cinnabon and drinking said orange juice, and sitting for two hours in Southwest's terminal were a complete waste of time.

Ice storms suck, at least I wasn't there for it. But, I get to rinse and repeat the above activities next week.

Marathon Followup

OK, as promised, the marathon stuff.

• How much I love being around runners
• I love being around runners, because no matter what they're doing in the rest of their life, they still share runner traits. Runners will think it's no big deal to pee in a bush because you're running and don't have the time to find a real bathroom. (And what's more real than a naturriffic bathroom anyway?) Runners obsess over the same things, understand chafing so much that you bleed, can sympathize when you have more blisters than toes, can appreciate the dedication it sometimes takes to get out the door, and most of all, they know why it makes sense to run when you're sore. I could go on and on, but I think you get it.
  
• The Jesus Freaks in the first 4 miles
• We took off in 29 degree weather, which was ridiculous because the marathon is in Phoenix for cripes sake, (and since when is it 29 degrees in Phoenix?) and right around the first mile marker there is a young blond woman holding a 3' by 4' sign that had something about Jesus on it screaming about how Jesus is the only way, that we should not be tempted because Satan is everywhere and we will go to HELL! Understandably, we continue running. Around the second mile, there was an older man holding a 3' by 4' sign with the same Jesus type messages and he was screaming essentially the same things. There was another young man sometime before the 4 mile mark, and his sign said something about Jesus and how religion and church don't matter, and he was screaming that we can only find salvation through Jesus, and if we didn't we would be going to hell. One of the runners in front of me turns to her partner and says, "At least it'll be warm there." Apparently the Jesus Freaks need a lesson in knowing their audience. People about to slog through 26.2 miles in freezing weather are not looking to be saved.
  
• Team In Training
• Is awesome! They had about a zillion coaches and friends and family members on the sidelines pretty much the whole way, and this really lent a positive mood to the whole event. I don't know what their success rate is, but anybody interested in training for a marathon who wants outside support should check them out.
  
• Rebellious legs
• I am fairly strong. I have run until I threw up, run until I got dizzy, run until I needed to sleep. I have never run until my legs wouldn't run anymore. I reached that point at about 21 miles on Sunday. My mind was in it, I was in it, I was tired but it was OK, I was sore, but it was OK, my feet hurt, but it was OK, I only had 5.2 miles left and I was going to make it. But my legs didn't want to move. I physically could not go any faster than I was going, which was getting progressively slower. Worst sensation ever.
  
• Not being able to walk right
• I could barely walk on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday was a bit better, and today isn't better yet, but maybe it will be. See above.
  
• How awesome our SAG Team is
• We would not have been able to complete our marathon without our awesome support crew. They did a fabulous job being where they were supposed to be and giving us our Gu or water or Gatorade or whatever. Thank you to all.
  

Hello Public!

Today I am flying for my job to a different place (I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Juice-ton, Mexpass) and consequently I'm at the airport right now.

There are people at the airport and while most of them are OK and nice, there are a few that are not and that makes me want to go home.

When I was packing last night, I was going through my packing routine, and then I realized! That there were new rules about liquids! On board! And I wasn't planning on checking baggage! And I didn't know the new rules about liquids on board!

Lucky for me I am an enterprising individual, and was able to chickedy check out the rules online, thusly saving the day. (I know thusly is a grand word that I really don't have the right to use, but I don't care. I like it . . . . and thusly use it.

Now I am here, freshly fed with a Cinnabon, even though I really wanted coffee, but it was too far to walk (see, post marathon leg pain) and killing time.

Marathon Victim

I completed my first marathon today. It was incredible and challenging and I'm very tired and also very proud of the accomplishment. I came in at 4:33:09, and as such am too tired to go over everything right now. However, notes to myself for tomorrow are;

• How much I love being around runners
• The Jesus Freaks in the first 4 miles
• Team In Training
• Rebellious legs
• Not being able to walk right
• How awesome our SAG Team is
  

P.S. The Mom finished her first marathon today too, like the champion she is. And also, so did our friend SE.

"Oh what a family"

I finished moving into my very first official office yesterday. I'm pretty excited about having a small place from which to work, with an actual ceiling, and four real walls, and yes, even a window. I may not make the move from this office to another one when the company I work moves to another state, but at least I can enjoy this one while I have it.

There are times where I hate planning to do things in the morning with my brothers, because they never get up in time. We talked last night at about 10pm, and I said, "Hey, be here by 6:30 OK? Then we can leave by 7:00." I made sure to get a verbal agreement. I also made sure that the brother I was talking to gave the information to our other brother.* I heard the information exchanged. I extracted another verbal agreement from my other brother. Then, I went to bed. Yet here am, at 7:04, and I just got the second phone call assuring me that they're on their way. They called from their house. We are now late. Not that I'm particularly upset about being late to where we're going, but because I'm sleep deprived and I wanted to get some coffee before we left. And now, I don't know if that's going to happen, all because they refuse to wake up when one of their 5 alarms go off.

This is surprisingly hard to accomplish because even though they live together, they act like they're moving the Taj Mahal for you if you ask one to go across the house and hand the phone to the other. "Hey, let me talk to your brother." ". . . . . . Why?" "Because I need to talk to him. Just give him the phone." "I'll just tell him what you want me to tell him." "Yeah, because that works so great all of the time. Give him the phone." " . . . . . . . (huge sigh) Fine." And then whoever I'm talking to starts yelling across the house for the other one.