Archive | December, 2010

I Am Pro-Moustache (also, clowns don’t scare me)

22 Dec

It is the last days of work before the end-of-year break, and I am, like most average Americans, distracted and not terribly productive.  (Also, still no run, boo!)  In between tasks that must get done today (or, what?) and watching the clock, I have clicked my way through some exceedingly entertaining year-end lists, moustache slide-shows (wait for those…), and super-silly tumblr blogs.  I have been sending them off to family and friends, and then thought, what the hell, I am going to share with all a y’all!

Complete and total silliness, and damn it, pure good clean fun!  I sent this to my cousins, since we all know each others’ parents.  I give you…
When Parents Text

Since I am spending time reflecting on 2010 and planning for 2011, I have clicked into many writerly and designy blogs that inspire me, as well as planny ones that help put the ideas to action.

Long live Maggie Mason and the Mighty Life List!  I have started my own.  You should too.  Do it.

One project I am excited about  is to turn one corner of my living room into a writer’s nook.  Here is where I get ideas.  And then click and click and click.  So fun.  There are millions, here are three popular ones:
SF Girl By Bay
Design Sponge
I Could Make That

Thanks to DeAnne for turning me on to this guy and his annual review process.  Meet Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity.  I like some of the ideas he has here for putting thoughts to actions.

Here’s a great year end round-up of the hipster-centric world of tumblr blogs, that honestly is what started this whole thing.  Beware, this is a 100% time sucker.  And watch out for raptors.

All the best movies start coming out at the end of the year, and I admit that one of the few times I miss Los Angeles is for the movie-going experience.  One thing that LA does better than anywhere and refreshingly, with great earnest, is movies, from makin’ ‘em to watchin’ ‘em.  People go opening weekend.  They arrive early for best seats (unless at the mecca called The Arclight where you can pre-select your seat AND eat the best carmel popcorn on the planet) and they stay through the credits.  (Mostly because they either worked on the movie, or know someone who did.)  They cheer in the right spots.  They laugh at the jokes with gusto.  They are riveted by excellent filmmaking.  They don’t tolerate distracted audience members.

And finally, to the moustaches and my movie pick.

My number one must-see right now is “True Grit” directed by the Coen Brothers and starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon.  The grin that curled up across my face when I saw this little gem from NY Mag has made my day.  Yes, it’s true: I dig a moustache.

Overdone With No Run

16 Dec

It has been close to two weeks since the North Face Endurance Challenge half, and I have not run or written.  Boo.  And today, as a result, my attitude totally fucking sucks.  Yeah, no bleep on that one, that’s how pissy I am.

Besides the luxury problems that having so many to see, so much to eat and drink, and just so much to do create (namely some scheduling glitches and a lack of sleep), I have a real problem: I injured the hell out of my foot during the race.  Remember all those tossed off comments about not being really totally 100% prepared for this event?  Yeah, that was not fake modesty, I was undertrained.  However, like most amateur athletes, we run at race pace ANYway, and then wake up the next day unable to put weight on our left foot.  Ouch.  I have been limping since December 6th.

Since I am a generally healthy person, getting hurt or being sore or sick throws me out of whack in a way that I think others don’t experience.  I turn into a sensitive, distracted, pitiful mess.  The whining inside my head sounds like a daycare filled with fussy toddlers right before nap time.  I too am  mere milliseconds away from total tantrum meltdown, only it would be socially unacceptable for a grown woman to react this way to an actually quite manageable malady.  That I did to myself.  <Ahem>.

This brings me right back to the beginning of the problem that if I cannot run (due to self inflicted injury), then I write less, then I get all jammed up and systems start to shut down, and here I find myself falling off the cliff of oversleeping my alarms (yes, plural), forgetting to make or return calls/emails/txts/IMs, obsessing over shit I can’t control, not drinking enough water, eating way too much sugar, losing my ability to creatively solve problems (and my problems need energetic genius!), not to mention a diminished fashion sense which is also a self-fulfilling and downward spiral to Hagsville, and down and down I fall until I splat into a puff of smoke at the bottom of the canyon.  Here’s where I hold up the sign that says, “Okay, I get it.”

First, I need sleep.  Then, even though it is unaccounted for in my budget, I need to make another appointment with the A.R.T. therapist, because it is magic and I know, will indeed help my foot heal.  Then, more sleep, and then a really good conversation with my attorney (which is unrelated to the injury, ha).

And eventually, a run.  I am even willing to let it be a hike.  That would make me feel best of all.

sugarleg V. 1.1 In The Hopper

11 Dec

Working on site updates and launching a Facebook Page and adding “Like” buttons during Mercury Retrograde may seem super stupid to many, (especially to those who know that I actually believe this particular astrological phenomenon), but what can I say?  It’s time to make some updates and changes and sync this mutha to FB properly.  Please watch out for new bells and whistles, and if you are my FB friend, I will be asking you to “like” the ‘sugarleg’ Page very soon.  And expect glitches and spaz-outs.  I do.

PS: If I know or think you know anything about blogs, graphic design, technical computer geek or social media related items, expect to hear from me.

Cyber Cheers Requested

4 Dec

Tomorrow morning, at a soul-crushing pre-dawn hour, I have to go get on a shuttle to take me and other masochists out to the start line of our trail run half-marathon for the North Face Endurance Challenge.  I feel undertrained (and I feel this way because I have totally slacked) and slow, also whiny and wimpy.  If it is pouring rain when I wake at 5AM, I am not going.  Yeah, I said it.  Drizzle okay, but buckets of rain, not.

I signed my bib number up for reporting my times on FB, so hopefully it will work and you’ll send some cheers from the warmth of your Sunday mornings.  Okay, rushing now to get everything ready before bed (clothes, shoes, water bottle, hat, gloves, iPod crammed with Daft Punk, bib, chip, Clif gels… etc.) and then yes, sleep, sleep sleep.

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