100 Reads: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I made a lovely Sunday visit to Half-Priced Books yesterday and picked up this Mark Haddon novel for $6.  The story is written in the first person perspective of Christopher Boone, a British teenager experiencing life within the autism spectrum.  Although autism is not explicitly stated in the text itself, the story describes experiences and preferences that are undoubtedly characteristics of autism spectrum disorders, such as having all of the prime numbers from 1 to 7,057 memorized, an unexplained and severe disgust for the color yellow, an extremely negative reaction to being touched or hugged, and an inability to recognize and relate to complex human emotion. 

I am so far 42 pages in to this novel and found it hard not to fall in love with young Christopher as he so bluntly points out some of the nuances of language and human interaction that most of us take for granted.  The story has started with the discovery that a neighborhood dog has died from a garden fork wound and Christopher has decided to take up investigation of the dog's murder. 

As a mostly non-fiction reader, I am happy to have found a novel that is holding my attention so well.  I think this is going to be a fabulous plane ride/poolside book for my extended weekend vacation coming up in less than 72 hours! 

Maybe I'm Too Busy to Title This One

Burning the candle at both ends?  Not really.

Strapping the candle to a firecracker and exploding it into a million sparkling bits that rain to the ground in a spectrum of brilliant colors?  Yep.

So maybe I am up at 5am and to bed at 11pm some nights.  Maybe it sometimes takes 2 big cups of (sinfully delicious omigodiloveyou) coffee for me to reach baseline function in the morning.  Maybe I spend my train ride home trying to architect a night that uses every minute perfectly.

Maybe tonight I mistakenly thought a peanut butter sandwich would fuel me through 20 minutes of silly playtime with a yellow dog, a devilish carving session in the clay studio, and a 3 mile run.  Maybe I put my running pants on backwards and didn't notice until mile 2.  Maybe I forgot headphones.  And my gym card. And to check the mail.

But maybe, just maybe, last week I turned a corner in my marathon training and I am finally feeling confident that I will cross that finish line in October. And maybe today I was invited to showcase my artwork in June and I found just a moment to call Mom and Dad (between clay and backwards-pants running) to share that news.  And maybe in all the driving around I was able to sing to Florence and the Machine's The Dog Days Are Over at the very top of my lungs and even squeeze in a little dance at a stoplight.  And maybe in between all of this running around I managed to convince another person that I am interesting and worth a goodnight phone call.

Maybe I am vaporizing the fabled candle before I can even think about lighting it.

That's maybe definitely okay.  Life is definitely extremely good.

Casualty #2 (Or #1, revisited)

An update on the toe with no toenail.

Now it's broken.  Not the toenail.  The whole toe.

And before you go judging my ability to self-diagnose, let me just give you the list of symptoms and allow you to make your own conclusion-- which I am sure will be the same as mine.

Symptom #1: While running, I heard and felt a pop in my pinky toe followed by immense pain.
Symptom #2:  Swelling of epic proportions.
Symptom #3:  Hot to the touch, indicating some pretty gnarly inflamation.
Symptom #4: Bruising.  Pick your shade, pick your intensity.  I got it. 
Symptom #5: Pain.  And a lot of it, for a while.

On the plus side, there is a nub of toenail coming back! 

Reverb 11: February

One month in to 2011, what question(s) are you living?  Are there any prompts from Reverb10 that are still resonating in you life? Are you living new questions?


I took some much needed time this morning to read my Reverb10 posts-- I needed some time to refocus and recenter myself and I think, even though I didn't recognize it at the time, I needed to read those posts too.  The Reverb prompts are so great at challenging me to look at the good and the bad in myself, my experiences, my year and put it all in words.  Own my accomplishments, and failures too.

From all 31 posts in December, I discovered the following themes are still resonating with me and inspiring some of the things I am doing in 2011:

1. Continue to GROW even when it is painful.
2. I learn more about myself and my limits (or lack of) with every mile I RUN.
3. STOP WAITING.
4. CREATE whenever possible.  Create LAUGHTER always.
5.  Be CONFIDENT in my beauty, inside and out.
6.  CELEBRATE the little things, the lucky things, and the things that happen by chance.
7. In 24 years I have cultivated some of the most amazing RELATIONSHIPS.  Hang tight to those.
8. It's not always easy, but there's NO GIVING UP.  
9. The simplest JOYS are in front of me all the time.  There is no need to search.
10. CHANGE is inevitable.  I can resist it or I can look forward to the way it refreshes my life and the way I experience it.  One of these options is far more rewarding than the other.

For me it is easy to embrace and live 2, 4, and 6.  1, 9, and 10 come fairly naturally.  The beauty of 7 is that when I slip from it a bit, the others in those relationships pick me up.  That's how those relationships became amazing.  3, 5, and 8 require a little more practice, a few more reminders, but they too can be accomplished.  Overall, a very manageable and inspiring theme list.

Life is good.

I Don't Save the Animals (or Grocery Shop) but I Do Watch Professional Sports

I wish I could give you some sexy reason for why I have been so terribly MIA from blogging in the last 2 weeks.

Was I saving baby pandas in the bamboo forests of China?  No, I was not.

Was I huddled in a vividly colored tent at a base camp on my way to the peak of Mt. Everest? No, I was not.

Was I lost a sea for days, drifting under a harsh sun on a slowly deflating life raft after a diving trip gone wrong?  No, I was not.

Was I here, in Minneapolis, having several local adventures (of a less dangerous variety)? Why, yes I was.

Did I enjoy a beautifully crafted fancy cocktail at Prohibition, the bar atop the historic Foshay Tower?  Yes I did.

Did I know Minnesota still had a professional basketball team? No, not really... but did I have a wonderful time watching them lose (surprise surprise)?  Yes I did.

Did I start taking an art class with my mom and sister that has me a little psyched out (it's clay-3D.  I am a 2D kid, generally) but excited to have a concrete time set to release the creativity each week?  Yes I did.

Did I finally go to the Xcel Energy Center to see the Minnesota Wild hockey team play in the great State of Hockey?  Yes I did.  Did I have an awesome time? Most certainly.

Have I actually been sticking to my marathon training schedule?  Yes I have.  And I think I might have even had a bit of a breakthrough in the last week between a 5 mile long run last Sunday and a pair of short 3s this week.  I am certainly on track to personal best some 5Ks this spring, if nothing else.  Less than 4 months to the Buffalo Triathlon-- time to start working in some more swim time.

Have I been spending a fair amount of my spare time with a young man who shares my love for coffee (let us gloss over his preference for Starbucks...), has good taste in beer, makes interesting conversation, looks fantastic in a suit, and takes me to a hockey game even though he may rather be on the baselines at Target Field? Yes I have.  Gladly.

Have I gone grocery shopping since I last felt I was "out of food?"  No.  So meals lately have consisted of spaghetti or mac'n'cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, and coffee.  Milk has only been gone for 2 days, but apples for at least 4.  This is most distressing and somewhere between the treadmill miles, the professional sporting events, and drinks with fruit hanging off the edge of the cup, I will buy another 10 pounds of apples and restore peace to the refrigerator.  And maybe some cheese.

ALSO! In a completely unrelated topic, Reverb10 is back as Reverb11 and they are posting monthly prompts starting in February.  The current prompt is sitting unanswered in my inbox right now, but expect an update in that fashion shortly.