Archive | December, 2011

I Had Such A Good Sleep!

27 Dec

I really only opened my computer just now to check my flight times as I am headed back to Cali this afternoon… but of course, got a little sidetracked with email, Facebook and watching some videos.  (Side note, I am in this very moment deciding aloud how to back away from FB.  I love my friends, and do understand the technological wonder that is the FB platform instantly interconnecting us all, but I need to adjust my time with it and there is no time like the New Year to make some positive tweaks to the ol’ routine.  More on this later.)

I don’t watch that many internet videos, mostly because they all suck, but somehow stumbled upon the Shit Girls Say videos this past week and pretty much have not laughed that hard at a short film since Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s, “The Landlord” that launched Funny or Die.  (Pre-FB I might add!)  I emailed it to my three best girl friends and we dissolved into txt giggles and our own versions of shit we say.  Then I found myself with a friend at a Christmas party and while gathering  our coats in the back bedroom, she responded, “Right?” to one of my comments and I knew she had to see these. We spent the next four minutes doubled over in laughter at the string of bon mots.

I had to know more, so I found this fantastic interview with Graydon Sheppard, the co-creator of the videos and Twitter feed of the same name.  Please please please watch them below and read the article and LAUGH YOUR ASS OFF!  Don’t watch Episode 3 though… it’s so not good.

Doing My Best To Piss Off The Grinch

23 Dec

A wonderfully awful idea

Made it home (!) after a night of one hour of sleep due to my inability to do every task I suddenly deem critical before leaving town.  Oh and a little procrastination in the form of watching “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” on Cartoon Network right smack in the middle of the packing extravaganza.

My absolute favorite part of “The Grinch” is his description of the joyful noise the Who kids make upon opening their toys.  Now that I have had eight and a half hours of sleep, I cannot wait to play a little Zoo-Zivver-Car-Zay with my old and dear friends.  NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE!!!!

“And then…all the noise!  All the noise, noise, noise, noise!
If there’s one thing I hate…all the noise, noise, noise, noise!
And they’ll shriek, squeak, and squeal racing round on their wheels,
Then dance with jin-tinglers tied onto their heels!”

“They’ll blow their flu-flubers, they’ll bang their tar-tinkers,
They’ll blow their hoo-hoovers, they’ll bang their gar-dinkers!
They’ll beat their trum-tookers, they’ll slam their sloo-slunkers!
They’ll beat their blum-blookers, they’ll wham their hoo-whunkers!”

“And they’ll play noisy games, like Zoo-Zivver-Car-Zay,
A rollerskate-type of LaCrosse and croquet!
Then they’ll make earsplitting noises deluxe
On their great big Electro-Who-Cardio-Floox!”

Minute 3:36…

Year End Review

19 Dec

A couple weeks ago, I was supposed to run the North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon, which is a trail half, right here in the GGNRA  and an event I have done the last two years.  When I ran it for the first time in 2009, I also challenged myself to write daily for the last 3o days of training.  It was a massive personal success and so much fun that I ran it in 2010, to considerably less fanfare and much worse weather.  I was undertrained in 2010; I finished the race slower than 2009, and injured my left foot into a two week limp and several expensive healing treatments all for the lesson that I had to pay closer attention to pain being different than soreness.

This summer I ran a half in San Diego in August and then did the NorCal Tough Mudder in September.  The TM had a much longer course than the year before, so it’s likely I was a little ill-prepared for that too but adrenaline, insanity and Team Mudtallica got me through it.  I signed up for the North Face Half anyway, intending to train right and strong, until I realized my left knee and right hamstring were just not ever feeling okay, more like electric cattle prods were being shot into my joints and muscles with every stride, or if I wore high heels.  Yes, that was the validation of the injuries: the inability to wear already ill-advised footwear thereby ruining a great outfit.

With a lack of running, my writing jams up too, which as I have lamented before, I don’t like one bit.  It being the end of the year and an obvious time for reflection, I have added this conundrum to my list of what to work on in 2012.  (I must make a big happy note though, that 2011 was the first year in about the last seven or so where more seem to go well than not, so hey, progress!)  In that herky jerky six weeks of to train or not to train I did write several drafts and had one MASSIVE epiphany about a project I want to undertake in 2012.  My intention is to beat Resistance back for the next two weeks of 2011, finish the good ones of the drafts and begin to outline the bigger project.  This is my way of applying some discipline that I want to be spending on running, and hopefully building a new muscle that can lift my writer’s brain up when my knees need some rest.

Fingers crossed!

Life List #20: Get Back In The Christmas Spirit

18 Dec

There has been a bottleneck of unposted writings here at sugarleg HQ, one that only compares to the glut of emails in my work inbox.  Not that this is any excuse for not writing, but it is linked and as one of my ongoing personal projects is to be nicer to myself, I am going to resist what has become a reflexive self-takedown and instead, (although infinitely harder to do)  just let it be okay that I have not posted regularly for months.  I will ruminate  further on why I need to write regularly, mostly because I love to do it, and  it always makes me feel better to hit “publish” and then I will just get it together and write.

An easy way to get myself back on the writing wagon is to refer to my Life List, and see if there are any progress reports I can share on these projects and wishes.  Sure enough, #20, Get Back In The Christmas Spirit is timely and has hit some benchmarks!  After many years of less than enjoyable Christmases, I knew I would have to make a conscious choice to participate in the festivities of the season, even though I do get a wicked giggle out of the contrary grinchiness that is so close to the surface for so many.  More seriously however, is a deep sadness that many of us do experience and for reasons only those who have felt it will understand, I am unwilling to dismiss entirely.  I wrote about that sadness with particular clarity two years ago and when I re-read it on Friday it made me both smile and tear up.

So, it makes me happy to report the following heart-size growing merriments the past two weeks (with accompanying slideshow!):

I got a tiny tree that fit in the back seat of my car, and holds about one-third the ornaments I own.

I went to several Christmas parties and instead of ducking out early without saying goodbye, I ate, drank, danced, laughed, hugged, danced, smooched, recovered from hangovers, sore feet and lack of sleep and then did it all again.

I exchanged gifts and still will not ever understand the nuanced strategies of gift stealing.

I ate Christmas cookies for breakfast.

I put jingle bell collars on the dogs whenever we go for walks.

I got my nails painted bright red and my toes greenie-gold.

But, the biggest Return to Christmas Spirit has to be that I am going home to New Mexico for the first time in I think close to 15 years.  And although I am a little nervous about any unforeseen emotional land mines, I am so excited to be in my hometown, with my mom and many wonderful old friends who love me just the way I am because I often forget, they see me the way I need to remember to see myself: happy and capable and fun and deserving of all their love, attention and affection.  Welcome Christmas, bring your light!

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