Marching to the beat of a different mandolin

I was super anxious to get the vom smell out of my car, so I actually set an alarm to get up early and start calling detailers as soon as they opened. Unfortunately, the few that are open on weekends were all booked up several days out, and waiting two or three days was just not an option. One of the guys I talked to told me that I probably just needed to treat it with an enzyme cleaner thing -- it's the same stuff they sell in pet stores to get urine smells out. So I went to PetCo and got a couple different kinds, plus some new toys for Cleopatrick, then cleaned the car in the parking lot. Since I was up and out in that neighborhood anyway, I went to my gym and did my running program. 5.3 miles all before breakfast. (I mean, it was after noon by then, but I still hadn't eaten...)

Toby met me after my workout and we came home and made food, then I showered and we headed back out to hit up the Portland Pride Festival. It was really great. Such an atmosphere of love! I bought a t-shirt from a PAC there that says Bill for First Lady. I still love Bernie but I never didn't love Hillary, so I'm happily on board with her campaign now. I just hope Bernie keeps doing his thing in the Senate, and leverages his much bigger fandom to get some more progressive laws through Congress. One can dream. That's kind of why I'm opposed to picking a second-favorite politician as a running mate. Leave the good Senators in the Senate, where they actually have power. The VP is like being the understudy. You could be called up to the #1 job at any time, but most likely, you'll hang out offstage for the duration of your run and not really leave your stamp on the administration in any meaningful way. So as much as I love the idea of a Clinton/Warren or a Clinton/Sanders ticket in theory, the reality is we'd be much better off with a Clinton/somebodyawesomewhoisn'tcurrentlyinapowerfulposition ticket, imo. I'd volunteer for the gig, but I'm not old enough yet. It's funny how at 33, there are still areas where I'm not "of age." (Not counting senior discounts and things of that nature.)

Anyway Pride was great. In addition to my Bill for First Lady shirt, Toby and I both got new kilts. I've been telling him he's going to need one for Falcon Ridge (other than his formal tartan, which would be way too hot there), and it just so happened this place had some femme designs, too, so I got a purple one (of course!) and Toby got a navy blue one. They're kinda like Utili-kilts, but they're Portland-made. Stumptown Kilts. I love mine, and Toby looks just delicious in his. After Pride, we swung by his office to print some things for a craft project I'm working on. He was super helpful with the design aspect. I'll be posting that when I'm finished, hopefully in a few days :)

Came back home, played some board games, ate some foods, and now I'm going to bed at a reasonable hour! Also note that I got out of bed and was active all day long without a nap today. 10am to 10pm. Still a shortish day by most people's standards, but this is HUGE for me. All week prior, I spent an average of about 4 hours a day out of my bed. I wasn't sleeping all the rest of that time, I just wasn't doing anything particularly productive, either. So this is good. Tomorrow will look the same, I think -- up early to do an open house, then Toby and I have a craft project to work on, then off to game night. And Monday is the day I've vowed to start my "get up early and be productive" plan. In that case, early means before 8am instead of before noon. (Tomorrow, being a weekend, early means 10am.)

Night night!

I've always been very silly and outgoing and open, and I'm guessing that most people would assume I'm the kind of person who loves to go streaking or flash random strangers when I'm drunk or maybe even not drunk. But the thing is, no. I've had body image issues for my whole life, and I've *never* been comfortable getting naked in front of others. Even with sexual partners, there have always been things about my body that I'm not comfortable with. In all my time with Z, I never did get past some of my hangups, even with him.

This is something I've been trying to work on. I mean it's not like it's an important life skill to be able to be naked in front of people, but I think the underlying body image and confidence are a big part of the whole deal, and also a lot of my friends do a lot of naked things and I'd like to not feel weird about it. Because I honestly don't care if my friends know what my tits look like. Clothing is such that the shape of a person's body isn't really ever a secret anyway -- but despite logic, the hangups remain, and so it's a thing that's hard for me.

I've done a few naked hot tub sessions with a handful of friends. It's always awkward for me at first, but then I loosen up about it. I'm getting more comfortable with the idea.

Then last night was the Portland World Naked Bike Ride. I've been planning to participate in this for years, but had been conveniently out of town in previous years, so I didn't have to worry about facing this anxiety until this year, when I had no alternate plans. I was literally sick to my stomach for most of the day just thinking about it. But I also knew all along that this was an illogical feeling and that I would be with 10,000 other naked people, so let's do this, right?

Well, I fucking did it. I went to the park about an hour before the ride and slowly removed more of my clothes until I was down to shoes, socks, underpants, and helmet. A lot of people keep their underpants on because, yeah, it's a sweaty thing, and I felt like that was a good stopping point for me. I stood around naked in the park with 10,000 other naked people. I met some new people for the first time while we were all naked together. Then I rode my bike through the streets of Portland for 5 naked miles. There were a few times where I felt a little weird -- a LOT of people stand on the sidelines and take pictures, which is pretty fucking skeevy, but I wasn't too icked out by it because it was mostly dark and I was part of a whole sea of nudity, so whatever. It actually didn't feel sexual at all. And that's the point. Part of the idea of the ride is to promote positive body image. And I don't feel like it cured my desire to look a little different, but I do feel like I can be as comfortable in this naked body as I could be in a perfectly sculpted one. And this was a big step that meant a lot to me. Yay.

Youguysyouguysyouguys! I finished my real estate coursework! I still have a few steps before I'm licensed -- there are end-of-course exams I have to pass, and I should study a bit before I try to take those, because some of that reading is not very fresh in my mind, but I did take one of them today and passed it (for the most recent subject material I covered). It only took about ten minutes to complete that exam, though, so I don't think that the rest of them will take up too much time. Then I need to schedule my final licensing exam, pass the mofo (you find out immediately), and proceed with my startup stuff like getting photos taken and launching a website and all that fun stuff. I'm so close! Finishing the coursework was huge for me, though. I've been stagnating for a long time, really close to the finish line but just not focused enough to fucking get it done. We talked a lot about that in therapy last night, discussed strategies to get the ball rolling again (and to stay on task), and whaddya know, I applied said strategies and was successful. Huzzah!

Therapy has been really good lately. I'm feeling a lot better about so many things, and both Z and I are much more relaxed in our coexistence than we have been in...ever. So that's good. Obviously there's a lot about it that's still really hard, but I feel like we're making the right kind of progress.

I've got an awesome long weekend ahead of me. We've got three different guests coming for various stays -- Jen Cote is coming up from NM tonight, and will be here through Tuesday. She was here about this time last year and I love her and we always have a blast together. Then tomorrow, Jen Chalfan is coming down from Seattle, probably bringing her daughter, and staying for the weekend. We're all signed up to run a 5K on Saturday, which happens to take place at a local amusement park, so that'll be a fun day. Then on Sunday, we have a new short-term renter moving in.

In preparation for all of this, we've been doing a lot of housework. That's something else I'm working on in therapy to try to be better at...not letting my laziness overcome me to the detriment of my living conditions. It's a struggle. But guests are good motivation.

I've also solidified most of my travel plans for the rest of the calendar year. I've all but given up on hitting the mileage requirement for Gold status again, but I'm well into Silver anyway. I was hoping to go someplace international, and I still might if the right fare pops up, but right now I'm just planning on sticking around here for the most part, and going to Providence for the duration of the NABC (after having Thanksgiving in Virginia with my folks). Because of my work schedule and the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm able to take two full weeks off and only having two days covered by my coworker, so even though I'm traveling for a long time, it's not a major burden on my office. That's nice. I still haven't worked out what I'll do for Christmas. I would say that going home over Thanksgiving is enough, really, but William and his family don't come down then -- only for Christmas. So if I want to see them, I need to go then. And of course I want to see them! So we'll see. All this stuff is time off work, money spent, etc. More likely to go to VA for a quick Xmas visit if I don't end up doing any more traveling the rest of the year, and it looks like that's how it'll go. I'd like to get down to Phoenix a time or two to visit with A and Katy, and my regular four-day weekends should make that a viable option. But I also want to dive into real estate up here, which means I probably should be around a lot.

Anyway, super excited to have some of my favorite people visiting for the weekend, and I look forward to hugs and talks and good workouts and girlfriend time.

<3

I had a fabulous and full weekend. I'm exhausted now, but not because of fatigue (yay!) -- it's because I did a whole bunch of awesome, active shit all weekend. Jen came down from Seattle, and we did very Portlandy things in beautiful Portland summer weather, and I spent a lot of time with Paul as well. Paul and Jen are good friends from college, and it just worked out for us to meet up both days, and it was lovely. I love Paul. I love Jen. I love all my friends. I was surrounded by good people all weekend. Other activities included a bridge lesson (Jen and me teaching Brian and Paul), game night with a huge group, 10K this morning, brunch with Lorie & David, games, ice cream, and more vegging with Paul.

The 10K was great! I was able to manipulate Jen into doing it with me, and I'm so glad she did. She's always been a runner, but due to persistent injury issues, she's taking it slow and doing the Couch to 5K program right now. She's right in the middle of that, which is the perfect time to insert a 10K race into the training, right? Heh. I agreed to do plenty of walking with her, because truth be told, I was in no condition to run 6.2 miles anyway. She was my excuse to take it a little easier than I otherwise would have let myself. We agreed to do the race in 4x1 increments, running approximately 4 minutes, then taking a 1-minute walk break, and repeating this pattern throughout. It was great! We don't know our official time yet, because it's still not posted (wtf?), but the clock was at 1:02 when we crossed. It was chip timed and we didn't start at the very beginning, so it's possible we broke the hour mark. I don't think quite...but still, an impressive time for me. My 10K PR is actually my split from the half marathon, like 55 minutes or so, but my best 10K race was 58 minutes and change. To come damn close to a PR after phoning in the training and then doing plenty of walking feels kind of amazing. Though there are rumors that the course was a little short. We're going to ignore those rumors.

Difficult things in life remain difficult, but the perspective and outlook keep improving. Improvements are outpacing my expectations, in fact. I feel good about things. ((Hugs)) to the world because I'm just feeling huggy right now -- but especially to anyone who wants them from me right now. :)

People in Portland are seriously the best. The people who choose to visit a place like Portland are also pretty rad. I always end up having fun conversations, usually with tourists, in the long line at Voodoo Doughnuts. Yesterday I went there with my mother-in-law while Katy and her group of friends shopped at the Saturday Market. The wait was about an hour, and I spent most of that time talking to the guy in front of us in line. It was his first visit to Portland, and he was only here for a day, so I was trying to give him some ideas for what he should cram into his too-short visit. He was totally starting in the right place!

Anyway it was an awesome conversation -- he was so interesting, and I always love talking about Portland, so the time just flew. After we got our doughnuts, he got another visitor to take a picture of the two of us together, and we exchanged Facebook information so we could stay in touch. He's a senior at NYU working this summer in San Francisco. So he lives in the places I frequent...maybe I'll see him again someday. Or maybe he'll fall in love with Portland the way I did and he'll end up here when he graduates, and he'll want me to teach him bridge and we'll become the most dominant pair of young players in the northwest. Hey, a girl can dream :)

Something about this city just makes this kind of interaction the norm. It feels safe and comfortable to talk to strangers. The underlying fact that each of you chose to be in Portland is enough of a basis to know that it's all good.

I haven't been everywhere, but I've been a lot of places. Portland is the best place I know. I'm so lucky to live here.

Yesterday was quite a lovely birthday indeed. We hiked in a place I'd never been, called Sauvie Island. I love how Portland is this big city with big city things and then you can go just a few minutes outside of downtown and suddenly you're deep in the woods. It's one of my many favorite things about living here. The hike is along the Columbia River to a lighthouse, a 7-mile round trip, which I guess I should call a walk rather than hike, because being at the river's edge, there wasn't much in the way of elevation gain. There were lots of beaches (including a nude one I didn't know existed). The concept of a river beach was foreign to me before moving out here. There might be a few sandy spots along the James or Rivanna, but they're not recreation spots at all. These were real, large sandy beaches, complete with families on beach towels and kids playing in the (bitterly cold snow-melt!!) water. We saw a sea lion frolicking, some bald eagles, and also a dead mole. One of these was less exciting than the other two.

Back home, we had a brief siesta where I had some time to Skype with Lucy and Frankie. Lucy said she just finished writing a report about Granddaddy (my dad) for a school project. I really hope I get to read it. When I asked what she wrote about, she said "EVERYTHING!" and then specified "and that time he was on a date with Nana and they were playing tennis and he split his pants!" Ha! I didn't know that story...but I'm glad it made it into her school report! People reassembled at my place at 6ish, and we played board games and ate yummy things until we were all tuckered out. Today I'm lounging in bed until something forces me up. That will probably be when Katy and her friend get here. I told her I'd spend the day with her and take her downtown. It should be fun.

I'd like to take a moment to clarify some family dynamics that I write about, which may be a little confusing. I am the baby of my family, but I have a little sister. Little sister is Emily, who is actually not a relative, but my neighbor since she was born until we went on to college. She's a year younger than I am, and we have been inseparable for our entire lives. She is a part of my family and I hers, and it feels like I'm underselling our relationship when I refer to her only as "best friend." She is my sister. We just have different parents and DNA and all that.

My husband McKenzie is an only child, but he has a little sister, too. Sort of. He has a cousin (first cousin once removed, actually, his first cousin's daughter) who has had kind of a tumultuous childhood, to say the least. My in-laws have been the only family that have really been there for her, and two years ago, they became her legal guardians. Katy is 16 now, and I really enjoy spending time with her. She's a great kid and I love her to pieces. I just try to be a safe place for her. So she's my little sister-in-law, and we're hanging out later today.

Anyway. 30. For all the time I spent thinking about it before the actual day, it hasn't really hit me yet that it's actually come to pass. Maybe there's nothing to hit me, and the big secret is that nothing changes at all. I've never put much stock in arbitrary dates on the calendar having real meaning or power, but I have always felt a little special in spite of my own philosophies on my birthdays. Yesterday was lovely, but more than any other birthday before it, it felt like just another day, even though I had special events with friends going on all day. I just expected maybe to feel something about this decade marker, but I think I've actually been feeling it since I turned 29. I've spent the last year so aware that my 20's were coming to an end that I must have numbed myself to the impact of 30 already. Or maybe there is no impact. I'm still exactly who I was on April 26th, it turns out. And thank FSM I'm not who I was when I was 25. I think my 30's are going to be great.

I usually never go this long between updates!  Apologies -- I just purchased Civ V after not playing for years, and suddenly all my free time disappeared.  Funny how that happens.  (It's a great game, by the way...but it's looooong and if you're like me, it will rob you of sleep and productivity, so don't say I didn't warn you.)

Since I last checked in, Kelly turned 30, and we celebrated in style.  We joined a new friend from our board game group and his girlfriend for a hike in the Gorge, happy hour at Edgefield, and then we split off and Kelly and I went to the Blazers vs. Jazz game that evening.  I was super bummed because Gordon Hayward has been injured and didn't play, but at least my loyalties weren't at all divided, then.  The Blazers won another thriller, and when the confetti fell from the ceiling, I told Kelly I'd arranged that for her birthday.  The next day was Super Bowl Sunday, and we went to Linda's for a little soiree, but that was more bridge and food than football.  

My work week was a little nutty this week.  The underwriting company that we work with is doing a huge audit, so I had to sift through lots of files to find specific documents that they wanted.  This is not easy, when an insurance policy is ~100 pages long, and I'm looking for a specific page, and I'm not really clear what that page is supposed to look like anyway...I usually only deal with the claims, not the policies.  I don't really like not knowing what I'm doing, and that made it the most stressful week I've ever had at work.  Still, really not bad.  Just comparatively so.  I did learn that most of these insurance policies have exclusions for things like terrorism and also "undeclared civil war."  "Sorry, we won't be covering your accident.  You see, it wasn't road rage, but an act o undeclared civil war."  Seems like that could be a pretty vast category, if adjusters wanted to be assholes and just deny every claim.  I've never known it to come up, though :)

Running training continues.  I'm <2 months from race day now, and while I'm feeling fairly confident about it, I'm also starting to feel the effects of harder training.  Twinges in my legs that I haven't felt before, lower back soreness...so I'm icing things and stretching thoroughly and hoping that my body will hang in there through the race.  If the aches and pains don't go away, I think this will be my one and only half marathon.  I'm just so afraid of injuring myself (especially without health insurance) that I'm going to take my body's signals very seriously.  But I do like that I'm running longer distances, and hope I can keep at it, just maybe not quite as many miles as I'm putting in throughout this training schedule (20-25/week...still less than a single whole marathon, but more than human bodies were really built for).  And I look forward to getting back to a more varied activity plan.  Right now I do five days a week of cardio, but only one of those days is not running.  Tomorrow I have an 8 mile run on the schedule.  

Kelly and I went downtown today, specifically because I did not want to spend the whole day playing Civ.  Well, I DID want to spend the whole day playing Civ, but then I'd feel shitty, so I decided I needed to go to American Apparel to get more awesome knee socks, and asked Kelly to come with me.  This is safe, you see, because Kelly hates shopping.  I can't get into too much trouble with her.  Yeah, turns out that's not true.  Kelly hates shopping for clothes, sure, but she's outdoorsy and athletic and needed to go to REI...where I managed to find a rain jacket that will be perfect for biking this spring.  Then I remembered Nike was near the food carts where we had lunch, as is the rule when you go to downtown Portland, and I'd been meaning to get some new running shoes before they discontinue the line that I've been wearing for my training.  And compression socks for running, because sometimes my calves get tight, and I've heard those are great.  So we went into down for socks and a food cart lunch, and somehow I ended up spending my whole paycheck.  It's cool, though.  All that stuff was stuff I did legitimately need (at least a little) and would have eventually purchased.  And hey, I didn't sit on my ass and play Civ all day!  (I have still played several hours of it.  Sigh.  Eventually the magic will wear off and I'll be able to focus on other things.  I hope.)

Anyway that's what's up with me lately.  Basically more of the same.  I play a lot of games, run a lot of miles, and go to work in between.  

I went to Chipotle tonight to grab dinner on my way home, wearing my Virginia Tech sweatshirt.  When I got to the register to pay, the guy in front of me waved me off and said he'd buy my dinner.  "Because you're a Hokie.  Merry Christmas!"  Turns out his son was class of '07 :)  That made my day.  I called my parents to tell them about it, and it made their day, too.  

I love that I'm a part of these communities -- Virginia Tech and Portland -- where the people care about one another and are just so flippin' friendly.  Now, what should I do to make a stranger's day tomorrow?

Finally made it home just before 7. It was a long day, but a good one. We detoured to the Painted Hills in central Oregon and had a lovely hike there. We also drove through a cattle drive on Route 26 between Ontario and John Day. That was a first for me -- I thought it was awesome and kept taking pictures. The cowboys driving the herd looked at me like I was nuts. Whatever, dudes, you're the ones riding a horse in the snow on the highway. Think about it.

I can't believe how close we are to Thanksgiving already -- it's my favorite holiday, basically the only one I celebrate at all anyway. I love hanging out with my family and just having a few days of down time. This year I'll get to do some wedding stuff with Emily, including hosting her bridal shower on Friday. I'm psyched!

This weekend is going to be great, too. Katy is coming up, and Kelly and I have plans for the Saturday Market, Voodoo Doughnut, and the Chinese Gardens. I'm going to a board game party on Friday night, and Katy and I will do something fun and low key together on Sunday, then I fly to Virginia on Monday for a week. Just three days of work first. I was telling Kelly earlier, I love my job and certainly don't mind "having" to work, it's just the having to be awake and in a certain place at a certain time that can be a drag. I have a Thursday evening appointment with my trainer, which means Thursday is going to be a long day for me, but it's all good. I'll survive it, and then an awesome weekend and extended vacation will be my reward.

I'm almost done with all my WW training, and it looks like I'll be taking on some meetings of my own pretty soon.  It'll be nice to get more into that and start seeing the income from it.  Funds are about to get tight for a bit.

Our latest update on the house situation is that the construction will be complete on Monday (of course, we've heard this before...).  If that's true, we'll have an inspection on Tuesday and hopefully close basically right away.  Our lease is up on October 31st, so we've got wiggle room, but Z is home next week and then not again until the end of the month, when I'm gone for Jess and Noah's wedding (!!!!).  So it'd be ideal if we could start moving next week.  Not sure how realistic it will be to aim for that, though, since we can't close before Tuesday at the earliest, and I'll work W-F, and we want to replace the first level floors before we move in any of the downstairs furniture...I have a feeling that's not going to be very fun.  But it'll be great to get it done!  New floors!  Woo!  (Signs you're getting old:  you get excited about floors.)

I ran the Portland Color Run today -- that was a different experience!  It was untimed, and there were 16,000 participants, so I wasn't going for a PR or anything.  I don't even know what my time was, but it felt fastish.  It was hard to go full out though because it was just too fucking crowded.  I was a little (okay, a lot) annoyed that even though they made like eleventy thousand announcements for walkers to stay to the right, the course was clogged with walkers the entire way, and they made absolutely no efforts to make way for runners.  <<Elitist runner grumblings>>  With so many participants, they staggered the starts, so I started like half an hour behind the first starters, and thus had to deal with walkers for the entire course.  Whatever, this event was so not about running anyway.  Shanon was walking with Jack, and started a few waves behind me, so after I finished my run, I doubled back on the course to find her (about halfway through it by the time I found her) and just walked to the end again with her.  We got Jack good and colorful by the end, and he just looked at us like "WTF are you crazy grownups doing?"  One of the people in our group brought her new exchange students with her -- they got here from Thailand YESTERDAY.  What a crazy welcome to the US!  I don't know how people do the Color Run when its in other places, but I guarantee you Portland is one of the crazier ones.  Even for regular 5K's here, a good percentage of the crowd shows up in costumes of some sort.  Today everyone was dressed all crazy and throwing paint on each other all day.  I wanted to tell them "Portland's not really like this all the time," but the thing is...yeah it is.  I went into Chipotle for lunch covered in paint, and no one even gave me a second glance.  Just another day in Portland.  I love living here.



You can't really tell from the pic, but my entire face was blue.  My bathtub looked really interesting when I showered...