cold mornings

You know what I like? I'll tell you what I like. Really, truly, brutally cold Chicago mornings. Not at all unlike this morning. While waiting for the bus just before 8, yeah, it was straight up 0°F, with a wind chill of - ready for this madness? - -20°F. There really is nothing as invigorating as feeling your nose hairs freeze over.

But the best part, I feel, about really, truly, brutally cold Chicago mornings is the bus ride downtown on the drive. Because on really, truly, brutally cold Chicago mornings, the lake, all the way to the horizon, is completely enveloped in a shroud of rising steam.

I like that.

writing about writing?

There are so many things I want to say, so many things I want to write, but for some reason I'm not. This is unacceptable.

I want to write about my trip home for Christmas (sadly, I even already have the title for that post), how my running is going (the Phoenix 1/2 marathon is THIS Sunday!), how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking (lots, to say the least), what I'm reading ( which is contributing greatly to what I'm thinking), even what I'm eating (Trisquits & tuna). I just can't seem to find the time between working, training (goodness I never thought I'd hear that come out of my fingers), reading, and trying to keep in touch with those I care about. Grrrrrrrrr. I know I can function more efficiently than this!

Alas, this is not the post to remedy any of the above yearnings. Hopefully the next will relieve my backlog of personally expressive correspondence. At the moment, I'm in far too peaceful a state even to being to delve. I suppose that's a good thing.

Plus I need to get my butt to bed...

wine after a run is good for you, i swear

I REMEMBERED!!!

I brought up all that silliness because work is finally beginning to become completely ridiculous, and I wanted to explain why that's ok! Seriously though, work is becoming truly ridiculous. Tax fraud here, boss having my staff pick up stamps for his wife's Christmas cards there, then getting completely betrayed by the one person I thought was supporting me, which of course led to the boss calling me 7 times before I got to my phone to call him back, only to have him once again insult, belittle, and threaten me. All while claiming he's completely clean. Yeah. Honest people do that. Really.

But enough of that. I remembered while on my fanTAStic run! Hot damn I love running when it's like this! Total blizzard, horizontal snow, high winds, not a single person out ... except me. :) I'll admit, running through 4 inches of snow on top of solid ice isn't easy, and I was hurtin', but it's always oh so worth it! Then I came back (looking like a snowman since all the snow stuck to all of me), stretched for awhile (I can touch the tip of my right toe for the first time in my life!!!!), mapped my run out at mapmyrun.com while icing my knees, and now I'm raving. RAVING!

But I'm quickly mellowing out. I've opened a brand spankin new bottle of wine, I'm feelin pretty good, and I'm highly considering curling up under a blanket on the front porch, putting some mellow music on, and getting friendly with that hookah while cuddling with a pillow. Is my life sad? I'm gonna go ahead and say no