Thanks Stevie! For #4.
My next favorite thing to take pictures of after birds and flowers and trees. The sky! Or more accurately: Clouds in the sky.
I saw this big space, just wide open in front of me, while I was driving to work yesterday, but I didn’t have the time or place to stop and take the picture. The sky is so amazing when all those clouds are up there, looking like they just got thrown across the blue, right in front of you, just waiting for you to arrive. You can see the curve of the Earth and almost feel the world turning under your feet, and you can imagine, for that one moment, that the road, and this life, can go on forever.
I can not be the only one who sees all that blue and just wants to keep driving until the highway ends and the water begins. If you have ever driven to the ocean, and I mean, driven straight on a road, for miles and miles, towards the end of dry land; Watching the sky change and seem to open up as you get closer and closer; And the air changes and the wind blows salty through your open window and you just know you are at the end of the world; Then you probably know what I mean.
But maybe that’s just me. I daydreamed of running all the way to work. And then I went in and forgot all about it until right now when Stevie sent me this to post here. All that from one photo. Pretty amazing. Thank you my lovely girl.
Don’t Read TIME Magazine!!
Or NewsWeek, or any of the other kind of magazines that make you think about the world and problems and issues and things that are important to life and living here in America and on Earth. If you do, you will only be sorry. Like me.
I feel bad because I did read the TIME magazine this morning, BB (Before Burrito’s) and before Bike Riding, and it makes the silly stuff I talk about all day seem kind of lame. I should have a point or a view and opinions and controversy. But I don’t. I have ideas. But then I see a colorful bird in a tree or a strange frog on the sidewalk and I forget all about deeper issues.
I really do have a master plan, and I do have some really good life improving ideas, but I need to get through school first so I can start earning the kind of money and hooking up with the right kind of connections to put things in place. Plus, I have to get my kids up and ready for high school. That’s their first step toward all of the rest of the education they are going to be required to have to make any kind of difference in this world.
I bring it up now, because I am going to be posting stuff that I get from the “smart” mags along with the usual crap I get from the internet and the gossip mags my brain absorbs like a dried up jellyfish. Plus, I may be suffering some kind of post-exercise-nature-beauty-world-love withdrawal, as the coffee and vodka (not together) courses back into my veins and displaces all the healthy-oxygen-clean-pure-blood, but it takes time!
And! I have some International New Features I want to post! The BF’s good friend from work just moved to Germany with her hubby and sent an e-mail and photo’s that are absolutely out of this world, funny and brilliant and real-world people perspective of other places on the globe. And she said I could post it all here!
For now though, here’s my stuff: We rode those bikes, in the rain (it stopped now and then) for 19.2 miles! Once we got out there the actual trail was a bit longer. Took us One hour and 45 minutes. Not bad for ups/downs/traffic/road crossings/the requisite work phone call (BF is on the job) and a stop to take a picture of an old cemetery that was there in the early 1900’s. The sign explains it, but the Forest Preserve acquired the land with the cemetery on it and chose to keep it as it was. History and all. Now you can say the site is educational and we can both feel better.
There were power lines too! Giant, humming, massive towers that were really crackling in the rain. I was so in awe of being that close and riding underneath all of them that I forgot to take any pictures. It’s probably good anyway. I would have pulled my phone out, aimed it up at the wires and got electrocuted when an arc of electricity shot out and grabbed the cell killing me on the spot. That would have sucked.
See? No sense of world. Ooooh…power lines. Electricity. Well, without it, we couldn’t type or read this, so….it needs to propped!
Anyway, if we go back tomorrow—which I’d like to—I will get those pics. It is pretty amazing. I know people that live by them don’t necessarily think so, but I don’t have my brains getting fried on a day-to-day basis…or…?? Just kidding. Seriously. I don’t really think brains are getting fried just because of power lines. You don’t need to live by the high wire to get the high if you know what I mean.
Also, in case you were wondering, I think I successfully burned off all the cals from those terrible, but delicious burrito’s. I checked the internet for an exercise calculator and it says I did. Now, what’s for dinner? Let me finish my vodka lemonade and think about it while you look at pictures of headstones and a sign.
NYCC Update! Video for Men In Black!
So I’m searching now. I could not find any Sidewalks Of New York video. That’s fine. It was a small movie, arty, a long time ago, probably doesn’t have a huge fan base that would post.
But the Men In Black fans are out there and using their skills! Here are a few scenes for your enjoyment!
This one is about the :45 second mark. I like this whole part actually. It’s a good scene. Will Smith freaking out. Aliens making coffee! Ha. See the movie if you haven’t. You will like it. And scene:
You can skip to the 1:20 mark here or just play. It’s also at the 9:00 mark too! I always recommend seeing the whole movie! Here ya go:
And it’s here too! Right at the beginning!
Ok, so you get the idea! I have to go shower and change…my kiddies will be coming home in a little while. And I have to pay some bills. I’ll post more silly stuff later.
Day Quote
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back anymore—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, that glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.
—Joseph Conrad
Running with the Rotation of the Earth
UN-believable! I felt like I was on the biggest virtual reality treadmill in the world.
Seriously. Well, seriously, because I guess I was. Running on the spinning Earth. But knowing, I was running on the spinning Earth, and noticing it and realizing the bigness of the whole thing. (Geez, today really is turning out to be quite a sapfest–it’s like I have overly emotional sentimental hormones coursing thru my body or something…)(Make it stop!)
Anyboohoo, for about ¼ of a mile, I seemed to be running in the same direction the Earth was spinning. It sounds crazy. It was awesome, and it felt incredible and strange. More importantly, I didn’t fall down from the weird effect, AND I’m not high or drunk.
If I had run the other way on the trail, I never would have noticed it. I started off in the other direction. 3.6 and counting down or backwards. I like to do it that way so it seems like I have less to go. Like, instead of running to the 2 mile mark, I only have “less than” 2 to go…make sense? Doesn’t matter.
At any rate, when I got to the space between the ½ mile mark, running toward the ¼ mile mark (going backwards) the trail opens up into a big field. No trees, just flat grass on the side. Nothing around. Just the trail in the middle of all that ground and sky. And as I looked up at the clouds, they seemed to be moving in front of me, rolling forward like giant cotton balls, and I was running with them on the surface of the Earth. It really felt like a giant treadmill with a slow motion moving picture show in front of me. I never even lost my balance! And then it was over.
I was back on the ground with the rest of the world, just running. Time sped back up and regulated. I made it to the end, walked to the car and drove home.
And here I am. Friday afternoon. The sun is still shining and I’m waiting on my son.
After I changed, I jumped back on the scale and weighed within .2 (that’s point 2) of the weight I wanted to start from on my 20 pound adventure. So I’ll start from here. Close enough. I am officially declaring myself even. Oh, what a feeling.
Back to hard boiled eggs and yogurt with granola. It was delicious. For real. Apparently, diet DOES make the difference. I felt a million times better running today than I did two days ago. The difference is the crap I DIDN’T eat. Ugh! How many times until I learn??
As usual, I had my music with me. I set it to shuffle on my ALL GYM play list and let it rock. 272 songs, and the following twelve rolled off the hard drive and into my head. I’m including them below. In order, as they played. It’s good for a 4 mile run. Right to the end, if you’re slow like me. Give it a chance. I was impressed. Luck mostly, but sometimes things just…work.
World Turning
1. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown / Jim Croce
2. Pulp Song / Stellastarr
3. Righteous Love / Joan Osborne
4. Open My Eyes / Buckcherry
5. Say It Ain’t So / Weezer
6. No One / Alicia Keys
7. Hemorrhage (In My Hands) / Fuel
8. Sex And Candy / Marcy Playground
9. The In Crowd / Mitchel Musso
10. Umbrella (Travis Barker Remix) / Rihanna
11. Leavin’ / Jesse McCartney
12. Right Round / Flo Rida
just shy of pretty 