I'm still standin...
Well, I would have liked to have blogged more in the last 10 days, but it wasn't to be.

Here are some things you should know (or that I would like you to know):

• Yoplait Light's Key Lime yogurt (100 calories/serving, aspartame, nonfat) tastes very good! Their "Boston Creme" is a waste, though.

• I'm going to a drum corps show tonight! I'm starting to get excited about it. I thought I was too old to join one, but apparently there is such a thing as a "senior" or "all-age" drum corps. I probably still won't join one, but it's nice to know they exist, I guess.

• Part of why I was so busy was because I was preparing an application to a graduate program, which I mailed last Friday. The school is in the UK and it's a 1-year program for 2006-7. The USPS website says my packet was delivered yesterday. The school says they can usually make a decision in about a week. !

• I should go now if I'm going to catch the bus.

• I did a good workout on Monday, but have been really dragging ass the rest of the week, despite adequate sleep and nutrition. I blame allergies. Time to hit the Wal-itin again. Also, since my goal is now general conditioning rather than necessarily a 5K, maybe I will explore non-running options for cardio. Jump rope? hmm...

• That Corinne Bailey Rae song is starting to grow on me. I didn't like it that much at first.
  

- posted by k @ 5:37 PM

 
New and Notable
What's happened since last Thursday?

• Thurs. evening went to Big5 Sporting Goods (in El Cerrito) on a tip from running coach. She knew I was looking for new running shoes and didn't want to spend $80. Big5 was having a sale, and I got a nice pair of Saucony sneakers for $30. Also, got a pair of every-day wearing shoes (they look sort of like Birkenstocks) for $13. Unfortunately, the uppers are leather, but I really needed a new pair of walking-to-BART shoes and they were so cheap and good looking. Also bought two 3-lb weights, $3 each. Interestingly, the 5-lb weights were about $5 each, but I thought I'd come back when I needed them.

• Went for a run Friday morning that I was pretty happy with, and did some core work and upper body work with the new weights. Good stuff. Feels good to be approaching "in shape" again.

• Last week my group presented a poster at the Human Brain Mapping conference on research that I helped with. For some reason, I am listed as second author! "The role of the fusiform gyrus in irregular- and pseudo-word reading: a VBM study on neurodegenerative diseases." Brambati S, Kalra P, Ogar J, Dronkers N, Miller BM, Gorno Tempini ML.

• Yesterday I played with my brass quintet at City Hall for the Mayor's PrideWeek kick-off event. We got to see the mayor up-close and personal. He looks just like he does in photos--maybe even taller. There's a lot of the famous hair gunk in the front, but the top/back seems drier; I think this suggests he does his own hair. What a guy. (We had a substitute trombone player because our usual one is at home with her partner and their new baby boy. 9 lbs, 60 hours labor. Yikes! We are taking them a lasagna tonight.) There was cake at the City hall event: chocolate with apricot preserves between the layers and marzipan on top. Very impressive.

- posted by k @ 12:18 PM

 
Briefly
Did *not* go running yesterday; I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep, so I stayed in bed in the morning, and in the evening after work I was tired and thinking about doing groceries (which I ended up not doing). Exercising in the evening is tricky to time because of course you don't want to exercise within three hours of when you plan to go to sleep, and you have to leave time for taking a shower and having dinner after the exercise, since you probably don't want to eat before you exercise, because then you'd have to wait an hour. So basically it's tricky. I guess I will try to focus more on hitting those mornings, but then again I might get a chance this afternoon.

Oh yeah, I think I am going to finally buy new running shoes tonight because I found out about a sporting goods place with a sale in El Cerrito. I may buy some weights, too, if they're not too expensive.

I was noticing yesterday that my allergies hadn't really bothered me for a couple of days and I wondered if it was because of the improved overall fitness or because of less pollen in the air or maybe because I've been intermittently taking multivitamins and generic-brand-OTC-Claritin-like-product. But today my sinuses are very unhappy. So whatever it was ran out.

Yeah, ok, I should get some work done now.
- posted by k @ 10:04 AM

 
So what's new today?
Thanks everybody for your comments! Ha ha ha. Yeah, I am a brat. If you have a problem with it you can get your own blog.

Moving right along:

• Went for a run today. Last week I started finishing my route in 15ish minutes (round-trip), so I added a little distance today. Also did some strength work, which was good. I think I'm already seeing effects of the ab work in how my pants fit. Actual weight loss is difficult to determine, though.

• Looked like we were gonna have us some serious weather yesterday, but it just rained a little bit. I thought a good shower might be nice to rinse some plant gunk and bugs off my car since I haven't had it washed yet. Not to mention that heavy rain would have justified all kinds of snacks and with-book-curling.
  

• Speaking of which, had brunch with JEF who presented me with a copy of Alison Bechdel's new book, which I read all the way through yesterday. Hopefully will remember to take it with me to the reading tomorrow, though I'm not sure what the point of an autograph would be.

• Last time I found myself at Whole Foods, they had Tofurky brand lunch"meat" slices on sale, so I picked some up since I needed sandwich fixin's anyway. The Italian Deli style is pretty much just like their sun-dried tomato & basil "sausage," so it wasn't too intimidating, and today with some trepidation I made a sandwich with the "Cranberry and Stuffing" flavored slices. It was actually pretty good! I think I definitely prefer it to the "original/smoked" flavor I tried last year. The cranberry flavor isn't very strong, but I think it would be nice in a sandwich with cranberry sauce or cranberry mustard. Hmm...

• Oh, on a related note, I found a neat website listing/reviewing vegetarian/vegan restaurants in the Bay Area: TechnoTofu.
  

Ok, well I'm hoping to use the rest of my lunch break to pay some bills. Life is so exciting!
- posted by k @ 1:04 PM

 
Rabbi Michael Lerner on Gay Rights
Well, there he goes again! Seriously, I think he has some good ideas, but could use an editor. Also, I wonder whether he passes any of his ideas to political strategists who could actually try to implement them. Anyway, I need to point out that this is a spiritual, not political message because I'm at work (on my lunch break) and because of the non-profit status of the organization none of its resources (such as my computer) can legally be used for political purposes.

“We realize that many Americans are legitimately concerned about the increase in selfishness, looking out for number one, materialism and extreme individualism that make it hard for people to sustain loving relationships. When people are only looking out for number one, families lose their sense of shared purpose and many people feel scared that the family, the only institution in our whole society that has the official goal of providing you with safety and security, is actually collapsing around us. Those fears are legitimate—but they are not caused by gays and lesbians who themselves are wanting to build strong families and would do so if the laws gave them the right to marry and build lasting families. People learn the selfishness and materialism because the work all day in an economy, often in huge corporations, that teach them that the “real world” is governed by a Bottom Line of money and power, and that your worth in the world depends on how much you can show your boss that directly or indirectly you will contribute to this materialistic bottom line.

“Do this year after year, learning to see others primarily in terms of how they can be of use for you so that you can maximize your own well-being, and no wonder that people come home each day believing that what is rational is just to look out for number one. And that makes love and commitment very difficult to sustain. So if we want strong families, we are not going to get them by attacking gays and lesbians or denying them the right to families—in fact, we’re all better off when they themselves want families instead of staying in the marketplace of relationships and playing around. We should want them to have families, just as we want our heterosexual friends to have the benefits of families.

“But to sustain families, we need something totally different: we need A New Bottom Line in America so that institutions and corporations and government practices and laws get judged to be efficient and productive and rational not just because they maximize money or power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity. Lets build a society that encourages us to see every other person as an embodiment of the sacred, and encourages us to respond to the grandeur of the universe with awe, gratitude and radical amazement.


The above gets a little heady, but I thought this paragraph was very good, though:
When people are in pain because they feel that love and safety are disappearing, they are easy prey to right-wing fanatics. We need to help them by providing a different way for them to understand why their families feel so insecure and why cynicism has become so prevalent that even talking about love seems silly and adolescent. When we’ve done that explaining, we are far more likely to win the battles for equal rights in the future.

- posted by k @ 12:57 PM

 
Updates for July 9
Wow, has it been two weeks?

What is going on, you want to know?

• Running: Last week was kind of a bust with just 1 half-assed run. This week was better with 2 regular runs and 1 shorter run. Plus I managed to do some core and upper body strength work, and I feel like it's helped my posture. Would like to keep that up. Would like to buy some small handweights.I don't think I'll be ready to run a 5k by July 19th, so now my goal is to lose 6 pounds by then. I am also aiming to improve overall muscle tone, but I don't know how to really measure it, so I can't state it operationally. I think when I am able to run my entire morning route without stopping (probably about 1.5 miles) then I will start seriously training for a 5k. Hopefully I will be ready for one in September or August.

• We have our tix for Chicago. We're leaving late Weds the 12th of July and coming back early the 23rd.

• Car: Is going to be up to 1500 miles on its odometer by the end of the day today. I think I'm going to get my bike fixed so I can bike some of the distances--some of them are only a couple of miles, and it's annoying to have to wait for the bus or look for parking instead of just getting up and going. And I understand it's pretty rare to get a parking ticket on a bike.

Seen, Heard, and Tasted:

• I saw a pelican circling Lake Merritt today on my way to my car. I'm not sure I had seen one IRL before. Kinda cool.
• Last week I heard a song on the radio* called "Ska Voovee Boobie, Baby." I am not making this up!
• WXPN is cool--it's like a public KFOG but without the lame 80's music. That's where the World Cafe comes from, but unfortunately, when you download World Cafe podcasts they don't play whole songs--only clips from the in-studio interview set, and none of the other songs. Stupid copyrights 'n stuff. Anyway, I was streaming them at work today and they were having a pledge drive, but it was actually the most exciting pledge drive I've ever heard. The volunteers would clap and cheer when the phone rang, and the race to meet a challenge grant with 3 minutes left was as good as a heart-warming sports movie ("We just need 10 more people to call in and pledge $75. That's 9 people and YOU!") So, it CAN be done--and without Riverdance (or that stupid Buble ("boo-blay") boy).

Future tastings:

• Tonight we are scheduled to see the "A Prairie Home Companion" movie. Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep and a bunch of other cool people--what's not to like? (JF--don't answer. thx)
• I am hoping to see Alison Bechdel read in San Francisco next Tuesday, or die trying! And who knows, maybe I will try to see her again on Weds in Oakland. By the way, if anyone wants to buy me her new book, please feel free!

Ok, I guess I should try to do some actual things. ttfn.

- posted by k @ 4:19 PM