General

I’ve been tagged for a meme, but I’m going to save that for tomorrow. Mainly because I actually have some other stuff to write about, which honestly doesn’t happen much anymore.

I’m a little late on the bandwagon, but I need to publicly declare my love for the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. I have several friends who don’t care for Radiohead. And while I try to be understanding of other people’s opinions, especially when it comes to music, I keep wanting to make them listen to this song, or that one, in the hopes that they’ll finally see what I see. Or hear what I hear, I guess. Anyway, the new album has become my best friend while I’ve been training for the 5K.

Oh yeah, something else. I’m training for a 5K. The Bun Run, to be exact. Here’s how that happened: I few weeks ago I was out sick for several days. On the day that I finally came back to work, I went in for a half day. Instead of going to Subway like I was planning, I decided to stop by Schlotzsky’s on my way in to work to grab a quick lunch. Along with the delicious food, I received a flyer asking me to vote for the 2008 Bun Run T-shirt. When you voted, you were automatically entered into a contest, the prize being a free entry into the race. Well lo and behold, I won an entry. I’m not religious, but figured this was as good a sign as any that I needed to buck up and do the 5K. I’d been talking about it ever since I started running, and I was already at the point where I could run a full 30 minutes. Now I’m up to 39 minutes for 3.14 miles, with my ultimate goal being 31 minutes. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen, but if I get down to 35 minutes, I’ll still be happy.

If you’ve never thought of yourself as a runner, I urge you to rethink. I never liked running, and figured it would forever be too hard to “learn” how to run. But my darling friend Pieces got me started on a running program again (this was the second time I was trying it) that was designed to help a person reach 30 minutes of running. I’m not exactly sure why it worked this time, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I’m going to be wearing a white dress in a few months. Regardless, I’ve grown to love running. I’m excited by the thought of how good I’m going to feel after I’ve gone to the gym, and I’ve finally figured out what people are feeling when they talk about a runner’s high.

I’ve started taking an anti-depressant for my PMDD. I don’t exactly remember the name of the drug (I’m awful about that stuff, and I’m at work so I can’t look at the bottle), but it’s basically generic Prozac, according to my doctor. I was diagnosed with PMDD eight years ago, when I entered junior college. Once I got a boyfriend I stopped taking the medicine because I thought, “Hey, I have a boyfriend now, everything will be great.” I was wrong. But I didn’t realize it was the PMDD. I guess I thought I was a bad girlfriend. Anyway, I’ve now realized that the anxiety and paranoia that plague me before my period can be helped. There’s no point in suffering if I don’t have to.

Since I started taking the medicine, I’ve been much calmer. More at peace, even. Sure, I still get mood swings, I still get depressed and slightly anxious at times, but it’s nothing compared to what was happening before. I didn’t really want to be on meds, but honestly, it’s a small price to pay for your sanity (and the sanity of your fiance).

That’s just a general recap of what’s been going on lately. I haven’t abandoned the internet completely, just found that life is taking over all of my time right now.

Hurrah!

My illustrious friend Saxophonin’ Gnome gave me a choice for my birthday present this year: tickets to either a concert or a baseball game.

This took me by surprise, mainly because my birthday weekend is being taken over by a bachelorette party (get ready for Karaoke, girls), and I didn’t expect a present for a birthday so near a wedding. But whatevs, I’ll take birthday presents.

I had thought about suggesting Feist’s show at Stubb’s in April, but thought the ticket price would be too high. Turns out, it isn’t!

Which means I’m going to see Feist in a month!!

Hurrah!

Honeymoon, here we come

I’m more than a little excited about our honeymoon coming up. We decided to go to Portland, Oregon, and according to a co-worker who used to live there, we’ve chosen a great time of year to visit. We’ll be there during the last week of May, when the weather is mild and the flowers are blooming.

We’re staying at The Benson Hotel, which has complementary wine tastings each night in their extensive wine cellar. Expedia also claims that they have Nintendo consoles in each guestroom, but I can’t find that information on the hotels website. Oh, how I wish upon wish that the Nintendo console will greet us when we arrive.

One place I’m sure we’re going to spend some time at is Powell’s Books. They claim to be “the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world.” And no sales tax in Oregon!!

The place I’m newly ecstatic about visiting is Ground Kontrol. I can’t wait to play Frogger again. And apparently there is a plethora of pinball machines.

We didn’t want our honeymoon to be the typical beach resort honeymoon. I think we’ve made the right choice. My only regret is that we’re not rich enough to extend our stay to a few weeks.

Addition

If you need some music to walk down the street to, 70s style, check out Orgone. I am not kidding; you will feel like you’re in a movie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jared said I should try to shape this text like a turkey. However, I really don’t have enough words to fill a turkey. So all I’ll say is that I hope you’ve had a good day, and I hope you’re a Cowboys fan (because if you’re a Jets fan, your day was kind of sad).

Cookies are always welcome

A co-worker and I routinely provide extra assistance to an instructor and her teaching assistants, so these very nice people decided to send us Tiff’s Treats as a thank you.

These are the times when I don’t mind being in this office.

Saturday Night’s Alright

I actually had a night that was worthy of a blog post. The fact that I thought about that last night makes me wonder if I should spend less time on the internet…

So we decided to go to the new downtown Alamo Drafthouse at the old Ritz. First of all, the new theater is very nice. Plush is a good word, as the walls and carpet are full of rich gold tones. There are two theaters in this new location, and both were showing advance screenings of No Country For Old Men (it opens nationwide on Wednesday).

I’m going to take a few sentences to tell you how great this movie is. It’s great. It’s beautiful. The acting is phenomenal. The tension is maddening. This cements my eternal love for the Coen brothers. (I mean, I knew I loved them before, but man, do I ever now). This is one of those movies that deserves to be called a film (as it is on its website I linked to). If you’ve never read the book, as I haven’t, you’ll be blown away by how good the story is, how simple yet complicated it is. I should warn you that the violence is, well, if you have a weak stomach, you might want to close your eyes occasionally. If you’re a literature student or just love a good story, you’ll appreciate this movie. (Well, I hope you do. We all have our own opinions, of course, and yours might differ from mine.)

Back to the theater. The movie started at 9:40, so we got there around 8:20 or so in order to secure great seats. (One of my biggest pet peeves is getting to a movie late and having to sit up front.) We ended up being the first in line. When the theater was cleaned, a staff member came out and said to us, “I guess you guys got here early to get really good seats, right?” We said yes, of course. Turned out he wanted us to be his guinea pigs for some seats in the balcony (we were two of eight guinea pigs for two balconies). He took us up by ourselves (he brought the others up afterwards), and we got to see the behind-the-scenes area of the theater. We saw where the waitstaff worked, and where the film projectors are (turns out the two theaters are back-to-back, so they had the film looped between us; our theater saw the film first, and the other theater was about 4-5 seconds behind us). The balconies are on either side of the theater, and they have two leather couches on each side. We choose the leather couch that was more to the center, on the right side of the left balcony. We had a small table in front of us for our drinks, and our waitress was attentive enough (she was also working downstairs). I really felt like we were sitting in our living room; our living room which happened to be a huge theater with leather couches and a waitress.

Afterwards, we headed outside and were reminded quickly that we were on 6th street. That’s a culture that I have no ties with, and I felt like a tourist in the city I’ve lived in for 2 1/2 years. We kept making jokes about all of the scantily clad women we saw, but then we came across something that made me happy we were there. There was a group of bagpipers with some snare drummers and one bass drummer. They all had their kilts on, but their T-shirts were all from fire stations in different Texas cities. We saw Denton on the bass drum, Corpus Christi on a bagpiper, and I think I saw Killeen on a snare drummer. They were standing around when we first spotted them, and we decided to stick around and see if they were going to play. They did, and ended up marching about a block. There were several people following them, so we decided to join in on the parade. There we were, marching down 6th street behind a fire fighting band of bagpipers, having just seen an incredible movie in a semi-private balcony. It was a great night, worthy of its own blog post.

Chills down spine

I can’t wait.

Baseball!

It’s October!. Even though my team isn’t in the playoffs, I’m still a little excited about the postseason. Did anyone else see the amazing game between the Padres and the Rockies last night? Whew!

This is all the posting I can manage, as I’m swamped at work (I know, I can’t believe it either) and too tired by the time I get home to post anything of any value.

YES!!

Very nice.