Saturday, October 29, 2011

Ten

It is snowing here in Philadelphia right now. Snowing hard. It is October. I hope this is a sign of piles of snow to come this winter so I can use all of my snow toys a ton.

Melie at G(r)eek Melie tagged me. I am it. Ten things about me that you didn't know before. I am not sure what  "you" I am supposed to be writing for so I apologize if none of these things are new for your.

1) After undergrad I went to law school for a bit more than a semester. I hated it. A lot. One day in the middle of contracts class I walked out and never went back. I left my books in class, stuff in my locker (yep, we had lockers in law school) and spent about three years writing for a newspaper and a medical publishing company before going to grad school to get my master's in social work. And now I love my job.

2) Our dehumidifier is broken, Bill just informed me. Bet none of you knew that already. He is also refusing to turn on the heat until next week so I am currently on the couch in flannel pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece and a ski hat.

3) The book nearest to me at this exact moment is "Runners World Guide to Adventure Racing: How To Become a Successful Racer and Adventure Athlete." It is Bill's. He's been racing for about 13 years. I am wondering if there's anything he can actually learn from this book, especially considering that chapters are titled things like "Everything You Need to Know About Eating." Elio's and Gus, my friends, Elio's and Gus.

4) Staring at this little chunk of horror is how I spent a piece of my Friday night. I posted a plea to Facebook, begging someone to explain why these things exist in the first place, let alone cost more than I make in a week. I am going to go as these pants for Halloween. I will just put my legs through the armholes of a grey t-shirt. Tadaa. Costume.

5) My first-ever race was about 10 years ago, a fast and flat 10-k not too far from where I live now. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to finish and, that if I did finish, I would be DFL. Neither happened, and I was hooked. I raced 10- and 5-ks almost every weekend for about three months, did a 13.1 and the guy I'd just started dating convinced me to train for the Philly marathon later that fall. Now I am married to that guy and the Philly marathon marks the 10-year anniversary of my first 26.2.

6) I am fairly certain I could exist entirely on coffee, Stacy's Pita Chips and Nuun. At least for a week or two.

7) I am short to begin with, and fairly sure I am shrinking. I swear I used to be five-foot-two, but now I am much closer to five-foot-one. At this rate I will be under four feet by the time I am 40.

8) In college I had an irrational fear of getting scurvy. I ate vitamin C by the handful. And it worked -- I never got scurvy.

9) I was at the slow end of the bell curve when I was learning how to downhill ski. I was extra bad at it. For the first part of the first season I skiied I learned how to stand up and how to get off of the lift without falling every time. For the second part I worked on moving forward down the hill.  I didn't get to stopping that season -- once I managed to ski into the lodge because I didn't know how to stop going. I am still a horrible skier. While I can mostly keep up with Bill, who snowboards, I have every bad habit there is and I refuse to take lessons to help me shake some of them.

10) When I was little my dad mad me paper dolls. I named them Fee-Fong and Wee-Woe. I think I was about two at the time. My parents found me a bit odd. My little brother had an imaginary friend, a bird named Fragile. When Fragile was about two, my little brother came walking into the house with a giant dead blue jay. "Fragile died," he said, as he handed my mom the bird. And that was the end of his imaginary friend. But yeah, I was the odd one.

I am supposed to tag ten more people but I am stubborn and refuse to do so. But please feel free to share random things about yourself anyway. Plus I don't read ten blogs to begin with. If anyone has one that you think I would like please leave a link in the comments section. I am not a fan of blogs that focus on close-up pictures of food. I know what a fruit smoothie or a loaf of whole-grain bread looks like, thanks.

It is still snowing. In fact, it is starting to stick! Yay!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG - you crack me up! I was laughing through this whole post. Also, you were right - I didn't know about your humidifer.

Abby said...

Last year we made it almost to Thanksgiving before we turned the heat on. When we went to bed last night, we were both firm in our commitment to do the same this year. I just returned from 4 hours out at Belmont Plateau, and I'm definitely wavering.

Laurie said...

Ours is now on. Even Bill got cold so on it went.
I mean, it is snowing and all.

Kate Geisen said...

This was great, and I knew none of it. I think you and I could be ski buddies. In fact, I would make you look like [insert name of talented female skier here]. I think it's my role in life to make other people look better.

Usually we wait til Nov to turn on the heat. This year, I caved. Not even any snow for an excuse. It's set for 65, though.

One of my favorite blogs is www.team-Virtus.com. It's a group of guys in Missouri who adventure race. They are awesome (though not the kind of awesome that wins races) and hilarious, and they're every bit as great in person as on their blog. I found them by googling adventure race reports and then excessively blog stalked them until they became my real life friends.