San Diego (day 1)

I do this thing where I dread, dread, dread something, and then inevitably, once I sit down to actually do it, it's not nearly as bad as some silly part of me thought it would be.

(I planned out everything I have to get done on my dissertation prospectus bibliography this week, so now I'm allowed to show you some pictures of downtown San Diego.)

There are palm trees everywhere.  It's a little weird, but definitely less weird to me now than it would have been a few years ago, before I started living in Berkeley.

There was something really nifty about the light in the city today, and I'm not sure this picture gets it across.  The leaves are just starting to turn colors, and when the sunlight shines through them, with the backdrop of the bright blue sky, it's pretty magical.

"Welcome Acoustical Society of America".  That's my conference.  :)

One thing I really like about taking walks with my camera is that it automatically makes me tune in to the beauty in the world.  When you're scanning for a good shot, you see things in a different way.  And even if I don't always end up with lots of good shots, focusing my attention in that intensely visual way makes me appreciate the way the light reflects off of the buildings, the street, and the foliage, the banking of the sidewalk, the width of the street, the colors of the signs and storefronts, the way the whole scene looks totally different when there's a woman with sleeve tattoos playing with her toddler, or a delivery man balancing a dolly while he rings the bell, or an old couple walking their little dog.  I didn't get pictures of any of those things, but I saw them.  And I saw them, if you see what I mean.

I realized (or perhaps re-realized) today that one of my favorite things in the world is getting on a bus with an unknown destination.  And I mean that both very literally and as a metaphor for my life.  The lady at the front desk told me one way to get where I wanted to go, and it involved taking the #20 bus and transferring to the trolley at the transit plaza.  I waited for several minutes, and finally the #120 bus showed up.  I asked the driver if it would take me to the transit plaza, and he said no, but he could drop me off downtown.  So I got on, sat down, and waited to see where I would end up.  And I love that feeling.  I really live for the rush of excitement that comes from taking a plunge into the slightly-unknown.  It was so exhilarating to be heading somewhere but not really knowing where I was going or how I would get back, but that really, I would be fine.  I hopped off somewhere downtown and wandered around for a while, finally found the "historic gaslamp district", which was cute enough, and then eventually got hungry and ate an Aloha Dog from a hot dog stand, which is apparently a hot dog with pineapple, onion, and teriyaki sauce.  Then I came back to the hotel and planned out what I'm going to read and write this week, and here I am.

Unfortunately I never made it down by the water, so I don't have any pictures of the waterfront, but I might be able to get some in the coming days.  I'm here until Thursday morning, when I leave for Boston, and the landscape changes dramatically!

For now, though: reading and a snack and then another dip in the hot tub before I hit the hay.

giving myself permission

I am in beautiful, sunny, beautiful San Diego.  (I know I just described it as beautiful twice in the same sentence.)  I got in last night, went for a dip in the hotel hot tub, then went to sleep nice and early.  Woke up around 8:00 this morning, lazed around for a bit, got some breakfast at Starbucks, took a shower, and decided that I am not going to do any work right now.  I was going to start right in on editing my conference talk for Friday and working on my dissertation prospectus, but you know what?  It's beautiful here.  (Did I mention that?)  And I don't have any conference activities I absolutely have to attend today, so I'm going to go walk around San Diego with my camera.

Then I can come back early this evening, buckle down, and put my nose back to the grindstone.  But it's sunny and 70 degrees, and I finally got a good night's sleep, and I am giving myself permission to go wander around for a few hours.

I'll be back later, with pictures. :)

I'm only 27.

And yet I've apparently turned into one of those old people who wakes up at 4:00 am after about 5 hours of sleep.

I did not intend to get back on a schedule that includes waking up at 4:00 am every morning, but that seems to be the inevitable result of not being able to force myself to get work done after 6:00 pm.  I worked on stuff for nearly 14 hours straight yesterday (ok, maybe only 4:30 am to 6:00 pm), and then partially against my better judgment went out to my favorite bar in Berkeley and played Boggle.

And then I woke up at exactly 4:00 this morning (without setting an alarm for then, mind you) and laid in bed for 2.5 hours thinking about stuff.  And then I remembered that I had leftover pancake batter in the fridge and a Portuguese test today, and I obviously wasn't sleeping any more anyway, so here I am.  Pancakes and blogging at dawn, which is only 7:00 am these days.  (The end of Daylight Saving Time will be nice in that respect.)

I'm going to see the San Francisco Orchestra tonight, and I hope I can get a nap in before then.  If not, then I should be able to sleep in tomorrow and/or Sunday before I head to San Diego for a few days.

San Diego!  And Boston!  In 2 days!  Ooh, I should remember to pack my camera.

Here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right.  Time to start my day for real.

Some Sundays are pretty perfect.

I have no complaints about today.  I have few complaints in general, really, but today is pretty fantastic so far.  I had something like 20 people over last night for homemade deep dish pizza, and it was so fun.  I hope everyone else had a good time, because I had a really good time.  I love cooking for people, and I have the greatest friends in the world, and the pizza was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  The funniest part was probably that almost everyone who came brought a six-pack of beer, so the entire bottom half of our fridge was full of beer, but we worked our way through most of it over the course of about 6 hours.  And 5 pizzas!  5 of 'em!  Grad students are a hungry, beer-guzzling people, it turns out.  I was also really pleased that the dogs were overall quite well behaved.  A lot of the people here were dog people, so they seemed comfortable with them and were good about petting and patting them when they deserved it and telling them to get their noses away from the food when they deserved that, and the dogs were so happy to have so many people here.  I think a good time was had by all.

So despite all the revelry, I was really good about drinking lots of water, and I woke up feeling weirdly good this morning.  I did about 6.5 miles up in the hills yesterday, and we're playing frisbee this afternoon, so I didn't want to overdo it, but I felt better than I expected to, and I did a good, quick little 5.5 miles with the dogs this morning.  It is a gorgeous day out.  The sun is shining and there's a nice, cool breeze, and it's somehow beautifully warm and cool at the same time.

Now I'm home and I made myself some coffee and pancakes and I put on some new music I treated myself to - the weekend before last, after frisbee, one of my friends invited me to an impromptu concert thing in San Francisco.  And despite the fact that it was Sunday night I had plenty of things to do, I went anyway, and I was so glad I did.  So anyway, I bought the EP by the girl we saw, and it's really nice Sunday morning pancake music.  I don't think she was intending that, but it works.

I'm starting to get really pumped for Napa Valley.  This is almost certainly premature, because it's in a little over 5 months, but I'm starting to get really excited about marathon training again.  I didn't know if that would ever happen again, because after each marathon, I've been ready for a mental break from running for a while.  I love it, but those 4 hour runs really cut into your life.  The thing about a 4 hour run is that it's a whole mental journey.  The physical exhaustion only really kicks in for the last 2-3 miles or so.  It's making yourself head out the door when you know you're going to be gone for 4 hours, and making yourself keep going when you get kind of bored and tired of running, that's the hard part.  And after you've broken through the mental barrier of knowing perfectly well that you are capable of running 26.2 miles, you don't even really get the mental charge that comes from the accomplishment itself anymore.  It almost becomes a bit of a chore: "Aw man, I'm supposed to do another 20 miler this weekend," like "Aw man, I really need to tackle that pile of laundry."

Anyway, now that it's been over a year since my last marathon, I'm totally ready and anxious to do another one.  It's been a long time since I ran 20 miles, long enough that I miss it.  There's something so meditative about settling into a pace and just holding it for several hours.  Your mind drifts all over the place, and then you get to the end and it almost feels like waking up from some weird dream.  Running that far is definitely a completely different experience, physically and mentally, from normal everyday runs.  And I have to be in a certain mental space to actively want to do that, and I am suddenly feeling like I'm in that mental space again.

I think it must have to do with how busy I am this semester.  It's my whole momentum phenomenon; now that I'm back to doing a lot of school work all the time, I'm just feeling generally more hard-core and like running 20 miles is probably a good idea.

Also, I really want to go run through Napa.  It's going to be so gorgeous, and the idea of running through the countryside early in the morning is just so appealing to me right now.

Running, running, running.  I didn't think this post was going to be about that.  I thought it was going to be about how I'm leaving for San Diego and Boston a week from today and I'm not ready for either of those conferences quite yet, but in a way this post is about the fact that I'm in a very good place, mentally, right now.  I have a lot to do, but I feel really good about it, for the most part, even though I could easily be freaking out if I let myself.  It's a good feeling to be at a place in my life where I can think about all the stuff I have to get done and just be ready to buckle down and do it without worrying about whether/how it will get done.  It will get done.  And I will do it.  But I'm not going to worry about it in the meantime.

And so some Sundays are pretty perfect.  You wake up without an alarm clock, take your dogs for a run through the Berkeley hills, fix yourself some coffee and pancakes, listen to some lovely piano music, and then you plan the rest of your week before you head out for some frisbee with your friends. I can't really think of a much better day than that.

It's the Melinda show!

Sometimes I feel like Tuesday is the Melinda show.  I have to go teach for an hour, then I'm presenting a paper in my graduate phonetics seminar, and then I'm presenting a paper in my psycholinguistics seminar.

All of these things are good for me and I enjoy them, but it's just weird to be explaining things to people all day.  It simultaneously makes me feel somewhat competent and like a poseur.  ("Don't listen to me, I don't actually know what I'm talking about!")

Oh fall

you are beautiful and I will walk in you
until my feet are tired and wet and drooping
dragging/floating across the concrete sidewalk
like so many fallen leaves

I will clench my sweatshirt a bit tighter
and relish the long, slanted rays of your orange sunshine
I will drink hot chocolate with melty marshmallows
I will stay in bed for twelve extra minutes in my cold, California house

if I am very still, I will hear tiny droplets of water spraying against my roof
and I will miss thunderstorms
and still I will be sure that snow is just around the corner
and I will be wrong for yet another year

Oh fall
you are lovely and glowing,
a tinge of bittersweetness at the end of one season,
but hiding the smoldering promise of a new beginning
in the palm of your hand

a haiku from this morning

early morning run :


a childlike wonder before


the world is awake

******************

Unfortunately the childlike wonder has worn off and I need another cup of coffee to make it through my readings tonight.  This is what I get for having a fun weekend and getting no work done!

It is time.

It is time for another marathon.  It's been nearly a year now, and I'm getting antsy.  I'm also starting to think about the fact that I'm not going to be here that much longer, and there's at least one more race I told myself I'd do before I leave California:

Napa Valley.

I am going to run the Napa Valley Marathon in the spring.  Do you see that landscape?  I think this may be the perfect marathon for me, actually.  It's pretty rural, and I do so miss running through the countryside in the early morning peace and quiet with no one around.  It's got some rolling hills - enough to keep your legs working and help minimize cramping, but not enough to really slow you down. And at 3500 participants, it's not too big, not too small, but just right.  Enough people that you're never completely alone, but few enough that you're never trapped or figuring out how to maneuver and pass people in fanny packs.

So it's on.  I'm really gonna do it, and that gives me five months to get back in marathon shape, which is way more than enough.  (Actually about four months, since I'll have to reserve the last part of February for tapering, but that's still plenty, so I don't even have to start in seriously right away.)  I'll probably start adding in some 10-12 milers on the weekends in October and November, and then I can really start ramping it up starting in December.  The only thing that will be a drag is doing enough training if we have a wet rainy season this year, but I can handle it.

Napa Valley, here I come!