When I Used to Be a Runner

April 9, 2014

I was wasting time on Facebook today when I came across the most hilarious article that reminded me of my days as a high school cross country runner. As sad as this is, I have probably literally thought over half the things on this list. 

Do I run nowadays? No, of course not, because college has made me a lazy bum. However, the air is getting warmer, the sun is shining brighter, and I am happy to delude myself with the idea that when this semester is over and I have more time on my hands I will get into shape and start running again. 

So without further ado, here is 

75 Thoughts Every Runner Has While Out For A Run 

(taken from BuzzFeed):

1. What a beautiful day for a run!
2. This sucks.
3. Well, five miles is only two and half miles each way, which is basically two miles each way, so I’m really only running four miles. That’s not too far.
4. It’s starting to feel far.
5. How long have I been running? A year?
6. SIX MINUTES?! 
7. I can barely remember what my life was like before I started this run.
8. OK, concentrate. There are still four-plus miles to go. 
9. But who counts the first and last mile? This is pretty much an easy three miler.
10. Oh, shit! A fellow jogger!
11. Should I wave?
12. I’m totally gonna wave.
13. OOOK, they didn’t wave back. Never doing that again.
14. Just keep running, no one saw. Except that old guy who may or may not be averting his eyes.
15. Man, I think I’m hitting that “second wind” thing my gym coach was talking about.
16. Wait, never mind. I’ve been running down a decline. 
17. If I leap to avoid dog shit, does that make me a CrossFit athlete?
18. What the heck is CrossFit anyway?
19. Mental reminder: Google CrossFit when I get home.
20. If I ever get home.
21. If I had a heart attack right now, I wonder who would find my body.
22. OMG, I hope I never find a dead body. Joggers always find dead bodies.
23. Bodies. Body. Bod-ay. Runnin’ all day, no one can catch … may.
24. OK, I must be halfway done by now.
25. What?! Only two miles in?
26. Alright, stay focused. What am I going to eat when I get home?
27. I’m running five miles so I should probably eat five slices of pizza.
28. Or I could buy one pizza and ask them to cut it into five slices.
29. I should probably get a side salad too. 
30. …
31. Fuck the salad actually.
32. Man, what are these people doing in front of me? Walking?!
33. Is this a contest to see who’s the worst at walking? Because you are both champions in my heart.
34. Maybe if I pound my feet on the ground they’ll hear me coming and let me pass.
35. Oh, God. They didn’t turn around and now I’m right behind them. They’re going to think they’re getting mugged by the world’s sweatiest criminal.
36. You know what? Now seems like a good time to run in the street.
37. * Jumps off curb * Parkour!
38. Hi hi hi please don’t hit me with your car. 
39. Pedestrian pedestrianizing over here, let me cross. 
40. Thank you, Mr. Blue Honda. I’m trying to smile at you but it probably looks like I’m having a stroke. 
41. Actually, I wonder what I look like right now. 
42. * Checks out reflection in shop window * Yeesh.
43. Is that what I look like when I run? What am I, a newborn deer with a drinking problem?
44. Whatever, I must be almost done by now. 
45. Heck yes. Three miles down, two to go. It’s all downhill from here. 
46. Except for that very real uphill in front of me. God damnit.
47. Wait, is that… Is that…
48. A DOG! 
49. Hi dog! You are so cute. You are now my mascot. I will finish this run for you, pup.
50. And — hello — what do we have here? Your human is pretty cute too.
51. Hope you like drunk fawns, Cute Human.
52. Watch my bambi ass prance up this hill.
53. Holy shit, prancing is exhausting. I am exhausted. 
54. Honestly, I don’t even like running.
55. Why do I even run?
56. Why does anyone even run?
57. Why are we even alive?
58. OK, let’s not go down that road.
59. Focus. Focus on that sweet, delicious ‘za waiting at the finish line, calling your name with its cheesy breath.
60. Wait, less than one mile to go? I am KILLING this run. 
61. I AM THE SWIFTEST GOD OF ALL TWO-LEGGED CREATURES.
62. YES, including ostriches.
63. Honestly, I should sign up for a marathon.
64. What is it, like 30 miles?
65. That’s just 15 miles each way, which is practically 10, and 10 is twice five, and I can run five miles EASY.
66. That’s it, I’m doing it. Thirty miles.
67. Thirty-mile marathon…30-mile marathon…30 Rock marathon.
68. On second thought, I’ll probably just binge-watch every episode of 30 Rock. That takes a lot of dedication and I will be winded from laughing so hard.
69. But I could probably do a marathon IF I wanted. 
70. OK, almost home. Should I shower first and order pizza or order pizza and shower before it shows up?
71. Yep, definitely ordering first. I earned that shit.
72. Oh, no. Oh god no. Another runner. Should I wave?
73. No, be strong! Do not get burned again. 
74. OMG, SHE waved first! Hello! Yes! We are both runners! Look at us run!
75. I guess running’s not so bad.

Breakfast With a Moosette

March 18, 2014

Hello there, dear audience. I am back from Spring Break! Not that you would have known or anything, what with the infrequency of my blog postings. I apologize. Apparently my long-term levels of dedication still need some tweaking.

I have oh-so-many stories to tell you, dear audience. However, it is 12:30 am, I am waiting for my pasties to finish cooking in the oven, I feel every spot of grime from the day in the pores on my face, and I have become so incoherent as to forget how to spell the word "application." So I will settle with telling you one of my exciting stories and getting back to you tomorrow. And this one begins with a plate of waffles.

Over Spring Break, my roommate and I decided that we wanted to do a little more than just go back home and visit our families, so we planned in advance to spend the second, and last, weekend of Spring Break in my dad's cabin up in the mountains. 

I want to dispel any misconceptions about this right away. First, yes, this cabin has electricity. Not only does it have electricity, it also has WiFi and cable TV. So we were, in no way, shape, or form, "roughing it." There were also a whole bunch of cool toys in the garage, such as snowmobiles and four-wheelers (which relates to one of the other stories I have to tell you all). 

On Friday morning, my roommate was making waffles in her grandmother's waffle iron while I showered in water that smelled vaguely of sulfur. I was looking forward to a day outside without having to worry about any other things that needed done or other people who needed my time or attention. I wandered out into the kitchen, dug through the cupboards until I found the huge jug of Mrs. Butterworth, and settled myself down at the table to gorge myself on strawberries and waffles. 

It's amazing how quiet it can be when you're out in the middle of the woods, with someone who doesn't feel the need to fill the silence. I don't know if I would enjoy living that way all the time, but there is definitely something to be said for those mornings when you can just sit at the table and look out into the forest without any of your normal distractions.

Which is why it scared the bejeezus out of me when I looked up from my waffles to find a moose practically standing on the back porch. Only, it would have been a lot less worrying if she (I was almost positive that she was a moosette) had decided to stand right up on the porch. As it was, she was slipping and sliding her way across the side of this giant snow pile that had formed at the edge of the roof. I eyed the poles supporting the roof with a little trepidation. One misstep and she would slide right into the poles that were holding up the roof/awning over the porch, which looked disturbingly fragile with their stacked wood held in place by some sort of cross between a spring and a screw. 

Luckily, she made it across the porch without incident and proceeded to wander into a nearby stand of brush and eat twigs. I had never truly realized how big a moose was before. I would hate to hit one with my car. 

She stayed there for about 15 to 20 minutes, seemingly unconcerned with us gawking at her through the window. We weren't quite brave enough to venture out onto the porch. After a while, she wandered away through the trees, leaving us to our breakfast and the rest of our day. My roommate was quite disappointed when she didn't come to visit us at breakfast again the next day.

And you are all in luck today, dear audience, because my roommate is as swift as a cheetah and happens to own an iPhone, so she snapped a couple of pictures of the moosette standing by the porch. You're lucky that she was there, because I am sad to say that my own photography skills leave a lot to be desired. 

On Days When Sheep Just Aren't That Interesting...

February 24, 2014

Hello there, dear audience. Did you miss me? I realize that it has been a while since my last post, but I found myself in a weird sort of schlump where everything I tried to write seemed frivolous and unimportant. However, today I come to you with a topic that is guaranteed to grab you by the frontal lobe and engage your interest.

It occurs to me that sarcasm is much harder to communicate through blogging than through a verbal exchange. Which is a shame, since I find dark and cynical humor to be one of my primary modes of communication.

Back to my point. So today I was sitting in class, coming off a wave of relief at walking into my genetics class and finding out that the exam is next Monday rather than today, and I found myself irrepressibly bored. Astoundingly bored. Ready-to-stick-chopsticks-up-my-nose bored. The class was Livestock in Sustainable Systems and the topic was sheep, mostly a review of things I had already learned in Intro to Animal Science or things that were so obvious that my three year-old sister could have figured it out. Such as... What factors would cause producers to diversify their breeding options and select different characteristics to develop different breeds of sheep? Let's think long and hard about this, class. 

Dear Lord, shoot me now.

Usually about this time I take to doodling in the margins of my notes. Since my artistic abilities are fairly limited, my notes are mainly populated by flowers and stick figures, which gets tedious after a while. So today, I decided to mix things up a bit.

When I was in grade school, my friends and I used to make these little toys out of paper called "fortune tellers." Or something like that. I have also heard them called "cootie catchers," although I always thought that was a little retarded. They look a little something like this:

As you can see, it has words written on the outside, then numbers on the inside flaps. You start out choosing a color, and the person with the fortune teller spells it out, moving the fortune teller back and forth like so:

You move the fortune teller for each letter, and eventually have the fortune teller open like so. You then choose a number and count it out. Then you choose one of the numbers as your fortune and open the flap to read it. It's a pretty simple game. 

The fun comes in when you make your own and you get to choose what to write on the outside flaps and what the fortunes will be. And being as bored as I was, my fortune teller was quite imaginative.

For the four options on the outside flaps, I chose:

• Eugene Fitzherbert (better known as Flynn Ryder, from the Disney animated film Tangled)
• Wesley, a.k.a. "The Man in Black," from The Princess Bride (Best. Movie. Ever.)
• Thor
• Austin Powers

Yep. I was that bored. I then numbered the inside one through eight and wrote each number a fortune. I'm just warning you now, some of these aren't my best work...

Fortune #1

You have the animal magnetism of a horny baboon. 

You are going to be very lucky in love this week. 

Don't be afraid to let out your inner animal.

Rawr!

Fortune #2

You fail at life.

Feel free to throw yourself off the nearest cliff. In the case of a severe cliff shortage, 

consider active volcanoes as a viable alternative.

Fortune #3

If you have ever wondered if you are as mediocre and boring as you think you are,

I am sorry to inform you that it is true.

All of it.

Feel free to crawl into a deep, dark hole and weep.

Don't forget to bring your tissues.

Fortune #4

Well, hell's bells, aren't you the shit? You have now been recognized as certifiably awesome. Feel free to spread the awesomeness and make the world

a better place.

Fortune #5

It's official. You are a badass.

Badder and assier than the original B.A. Baracus. 

If you so wish, you could have the world 

prostrate at your B.A. boots. 

So go out there and get going. 

You have a badass bike to ride.

Fortune #6

You are a veritable angel. Animals flock and flowers bloom in your presence. Even your excrement smells like a meadow full of wildflowers. Continue to polish your halo and people will bow at your feet.

Fortune #7

Your new motto in life is, "Dress to impress!" 

You think that somehow, if you dress snazzy enough, people will overlook your masculine features and abhorrent personality. 

To this I say: Invest in a sexy pair of high heels.

And make a big ass for yourself.

Fortune #8

You are more lovable than all the fuzzy baby animal memes on Facebook combined.

Don't be afraid to use your adorable cuteness for devious purposes.

Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Although, I will admit that it probably isn't appropriate for the playground. Until next time, oh audience of mine.