Dear Diary,
Well, it was the holidays. I'm off a day.
14. Last night while friends and Baboo were running trails in the hills behind our house, I was getting wine instead. I will tell why. I had an incident on the highway--not an accident, an incident. I was headed down the highway at my usual 80 mph HEYTHEREWASALMOSTNOTRAFFICGETOFFME and a red car cruised by me, putting on some distance as it shifted across all three lanes repeatedly. The problem with shifting lanes repeatedly is that studies have shown it doesn't work--each time s/he got into a lane another care would be there, driving much slower than s/he wanted to drive, and for all his speed (at least 90 mph) s/he was actually dropping back towards me.
So s/he was crossing again in front of me - pretty close, in fact--when s/he saw the police car. So, s/he did what any crazy-assed speeding race car would do crossing less than 2 carlengths in front of a tiny blue Honda Fit - s/he slammed on his/her brakes. THAT'S RIGHT. S/HE SLAMMED ON HIS/HER BRAKES WHILE DRIVING IN FRONT OF ME AT 80 MPH ON A FREEWAY.
So I slammed on moi brakes, then realized I was going to hit him/her anyway. I turned to the left, to swerve around, and my car went up onto two wheels I'MNOTMAKINGTHISUPITHOUGHTIWASGONNADIE and I grabbed the steering wheel and turned and then the car swerved in the other direction, again on two wheels, and I had a brief second to think, this is it, I'm going to roll my car, just like in some cheap-assed movie, and dammit, Baboo is going to have to get me another Honda Fit. I just hope the airbags work.
While all this was happening, of course, I was uttering something like, shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!!!!!
But then, the car straightened out again, and once I'd swallowed the bile in my mouth, I said out loud, I want some wine now.
So that's what I did.
And that's why I was in the wine section last night while everyone else was running trails.
13. Yesterday morning, for the first time in months, I got up, and did some Yoga, at http://www.yogatic.com/. It was Awesome. I adore Esther. I have a particular love for Yoga, but it is unfortunatley full of breathy hippie women, who I can't stand. Esther is not that woman. She has a very firm voice, with a slight gutteral accent, and if she ever puts out her own DVD, I'm buying it. In the meantime, I've downloaded a bunch of her little videos and some of them are on my ipod.
12. I started training this week. I got up at 5:30 and by 6:00, I was out running. It was awesome. I love dawn runs in NM. They are dry and chilly and you come back all sweaty but feeling great.
11. At work, they bought a a brief intelligence for me to use to assess the kids. I'm still learning to use it, and so far, nearly a half dozen coworkers have quietly volunteered to let me practice on them. They sort of lean in when they tell me this, and express their concern that I would make their results public. They don't seem to have caught on to my sense of humor yet, and I enjoyed exploiting their fear. Hell, there's a company bulletin board downstairs, I said. We should have a contest - give a dunce cap to the lowest score. Nobody thought that was funny but me.
10. I got a lead on another job that, while not quite as enjoyable, is a decent job, a fed job, and half again what I'm making now. Imagine taking half of what you're making and adding it to your salary. Would you apply for this job? Hell yes you would. I may not get it. But there it is. More on this as it (or not) develops.
9. This weekend, I am doing another sprint triathlon. This is another one that I have done several years in a row. This weekend, however, it is supposed to get up to 104 degrees. This is the Milkman sprint. A friend laughingly referred to it as the Meltman sprint. HA HA. Ha. ha. ha.
8. My training still isn't what is should be, but it's getting there.
6. My Thursday night trail runs have been ruined by a class that is on the one night I didn't want it to be on. Dammit. But, so, anyway I've switched those to Tuesdays. I'll be participating in the La Luz training. I'm going to try to do the La Luz trail run next year. It's a 9-mile trail run. No, that's not a typo - nine miles.
There's got to be a catch, right?
So here it is:
I'm trying to think of how long it will take me to get 9 miles at a 30 minute pace, with breaks built in for sucking oxygen out of a tank and puking. So why am I doing this? Well, by golly, it's practically famous and practically in my back yard, and all my friends do it and I'm a sucker for peer pressure, becuase I want to be all cool like they are. So this year I'll do the training, to see what it's like, and next year, I'll sign up for the lottery and see if I get picked.
5. I'm battling Chinese spammers on my blog, and may have to switch to comment moderation soon. So far, I'm moderating anything more than 2 days after I post.
4. Yesterday I was listening to one of my mixes in my office, and a 20-something popped in to tell me that, ohmygod,ijustwantedtotellyouthatiLOVEyourmusic. There was a little head flip and pony-tail swing when she said that, and then herself bounced back down the hall to her office I'm not sure what to think. It's kind of like having a 3-year-old tell you that they love the way you dress, or your psychotic uncle Fred telling you that you make a lot of sense.
3. I'm finding myself annoyed by the swarms of locusts mountainbikers on the trials in the afternoons, which is why I'm running in the morning. It's not that I don't appreciate everyone out there having fun. It's that they expect me to step off the trial and wait so that they can go by. It's not unusual for me to encounter up to a dozen of these folks in a 4 mile run, so that's a lot of stepping off the trail and waiting. I don't think I'm going to do it any more. I figure mountain biking is all about obstacles, and the rules of the trails around here say they're supposed to yield to everyone anyway.
2. So, I have weird conversations like this at work:
Me: So you said that his behavior started getting worse about a year ago, and he's refusing to go to school. Did anything unusual happen around the time that his behavior got worse?
Clueless Parent: No....nothing I can think of.
Me: Nobody moving in, or out, or divorce, job losses, sudden changes, anything like that?
CP: No, nothing like that.
30 minutes later in the interview....
Me: Has anyone in your family passed away recently?
CP: Yes, my mother died.
Me: I'm so sorry to hear that. When did she die?
CP: (Dabs at her eyes with a tissue) About 15 months ago.
Me: How did she die?
CP: (Hesitates) She hung herself. She always had problems with depression.
Me: Oh, that's so sad, I'm so sorry. Who found her?
CP: My son.
Me: (after a pause) Your son? The one who is here now?
CP: Yes.
Me: You're saying he found your mother dead of a suicide about 3 months before his behavior started getting bad?
CP: I think so...let me see...yes, it was right before that. He came home from school - we were staying with my mother, because our house had burned down.
Me: Your house burned down?
CP: Well, yeah, but I mean, my son wasn't in it or anything. It happened while he was at school and I was at work.
Me: So, basically, your son got off the school bus and found his house burned to the ground? And a few weeks later he found his grandmother dead of a suicide?
CP: Yes.
Me: So, I'm thinking that maybe these things are related...you know, to why he's refusing to go to school now.
CP: Oh, I don't know. I guess. Maybe.
(By the way, I'm not violating any HIPPA here...this is a composite of over a dozen similar conversations I've had over the past 6 months - people are completely clueless sometimes as to the things that affect their children.)
1. Today is a good day here. The fire alarm has only been pulled by angry kids 3 times. And I heard a rumor of donuts. I shall investigate, and report back. ...
