Day Two of "The Wallow":

I really did wallow for most of today. I did a quick laundry and I also actually unpacked a box that had been sitting in my closet since I moved into this apartment two years ago. But most significantly, I went to running class which I've written about in more detail in my workout log (which I've also added a link to on my sidebar, if you haven't noticed). One weird thing, as we were heading back after we had finished our running, we (the beginning class) passed all the competitive runners all lined up on the sidewalk and setting out for their class. We filed past them and all I could think was, "OMG, they are all so tall!" I felt like when you first go to school and are in kindergarten and you feel so tiny and scared and then you happen to go to an assembly or something and have to walk past a bunch of six graders in the hall. How small and insignificant you feel, and how huge the six-graders look to you (especially all in a pack). Anyway, it was the weirdest feeling. I even turned to one girl in my class and said, "is it just me, or are they all incredibly tall?" and she responded, "OMG, you're right!"

So, Day One of "The Wallow".

Today I got my hair cut (first time I've had bangs in years.) I got the batteries replaced in both my Timex 100-lap Ironman and my NIKE SDM watches (watch out, I mean business). And I worked out. In between these things I did a lot of quality wallowing.

Argh! I hate car alarms more than anything on EARTH!!! The bane of urban living.

I had the pleasure yesterday afternoon to meet Ellen & Ken for wings & beer at our favorite W&B place, Blondies, on the Upper Westside. I had told my friend Stephen that I was going to be there, and as luck would have it, another friend of mine, Mike, was also in the City that day hanging out with Stephen so both stopped by. Additionally, Ellen & Ken had run into Harriet & Daniel at a race in Central Park that morning and so they invited them along as well. So we ended up having a good group of people. It was slightly weird for me in that two of my worlds sort of collided: my running world with my old friends world, but it ended up being a lot of fun. I hadn't seen Mike in ages and ages and I think it had been at least six months or more since I had last seen Stephen. After everyone left, Ellen, Ken & I continued to drink beer first at Blondies and then moving on to another old haunt of mine, McAleers. And then finally a trip to Zabars to buy some cheese, etc. (I also picked up some smoked bluefish -- yum) rounded out the day. Today has been spent lolling around trying to recover from all that beer. What is about about drinking alcohol that makes you so tired the next day anyway? Must be the dehydration.

What is it with some men at the gym? I notice this with a lot of men, but most particularly with a couple I see everytime at my lunchtime gym. Guy gets on a weights machine and sits there. Sits. Sits. Sits. Finally does one or two half-hearted reps. Sits some more. May or may not do one or two more reps and then finally gets up wanders aimlessly around a bit. Stops and bullshits with people, maybe sits somewhere and stares off into space. Once in a while, may randomly choose another machine and sit. sit. sit. Do one/two reps and sit again. It's the strangest thing. And these are not body-builder types who are doing one or two super-super-high-weight reps. Just normal people doing a regular amount of weight. This one guy who I see there all the time was there again today. In the time it took me to do 9 or 10 machines, two sets of 15 reps each, this guy did one machine! And only a couple of reps. Unfortunately, it was also on one of the machines I wanted, so I didn't get to that one (because of him). Does this guy think he's actually working out? Maybe he hangs out there all day long and over the course of 8 hours gets in a fully body routine. Oh and the other thing is, he's also always wearing this heavy sweatshirt. Don't know how anyone can get a proper workout in wearing something like that. Weird. It takes all kinds, I guess.

A note about last night's dinner: Is it bad that I ordered a full meal (red snapper filet with garlic mashed potatoes and spinach) while everyone else at dinner just had soup? Even though I only ate half of my fish and a couple of bites of potato and the soup they were having was a full-fat cream, split pea whatever? I sure did feel like the big pig, but comeon. I rarely go out to dinner these days, so given the opportunity, I want to eat something! Especially if someone else is buying. At least I didn't order the pork chops! (and they were tempting, let me tell you.)

Last night, after first going to dinner on the Upper Westside, I was treated to a production of Sweeny Todd at Lincoln Center. The event was courtesy of my father and in honor of his wife's (Lori) daughter Tanya visiting from Kansas. Although I had my misgivings about the play going in (I'm not usually a big fan of operatic performances), I was pleasantly surprised and ended up enjoying it immensely. I got home late, late, late however, and had to be up extra early this morning to get to work earlier than usual to give a presentation. UGH! The presentation is over, though and it went surprisingly well given my late night and lack of preparation and now I can start looking forward to having all of next week off! I'm just using up the last of my vacation days before my vacation time renews. Lucky me, my leftover time ended up equaling a complete week. My boss said, "you know, you can carry over those days if you want to." My response, "Nope! I'm taking them. I'm going to lie around and wallow and be happy that I don't have to pack or run off to the airport or rush around with my morning routine and catch a train. I don't even care if the weather ends up being crummy. It'll be comforting to know that I don't have to deal with getting up, getting ready and getting to work if it is." heh.

Overheard in the gym locker room this afternoon: Woman bleating to her friend about her hellspawn and how the school (or daycare or whatever) has wrongly accused him of harrassing another child. "Oh not my child!" Not that the teachers who are witness to the situation would know anything. They must just have it out for your kid. No way your wittle pweshus is a bully, nope. Also interesting is how they apparently have offered to video tape the kids' interaction and she has told them not to bother. Maybe afraid she's going to discover something about wittle pweshus she doesn't want to know?

Seen this morning at the train station coffee shop: Nice looking, late 30-ish/early 40-ish straight guy lecturing the girl behind the counter about the various carb content of equal vs. spenda and milk vs. half n' half and the advantages of one over the other. You would have thought this normal-seeming guy was a neurotic super-model. Do you think perhaps this low carb craziness has gotten completely out of hand? Sheesh.

So tonight was my first running class (since I blew off the real first session last week). I was actually pretty nervous beforehand, but I needn't have been, everything went fine. And the class was a good size, not so large that I felt lost and overwhelmed and not so small that I stuck out in any way. Tonight's session featured repeats of two minutes running with two minutes walking, coincidentally, the exact routine I put myself through last week at home when I skipped the class (only I did two mins running intervals with only one minute walking as recovery), so luckily I was able to do it without walking at all on any of the running bits. It was also very enjoyable to be in Central Park on a quiet week night again, oh how I miss it! We were running around the boat pond, but I occasionally saw people running past us on the Park Drive above, running up Cat Hill... made me wistful for about 5 years ago. Anyway, class was good, I really like the coach they assigned us, he was very nice and enthusiastic, so I'll be back! I'm glad I'm starting this now before the heat sets in.

Oh also, the weirdest thing. On my walk back down to 63rd Street to the subway, I passed Dominic Dunne on Park Avenue. Just strolling by. I did a bit of a double take. (btw, he's very short).

Things That Annoy Me: Having to listen to co-worker's phone conversations. First baby-talk to his damn toddler and now laughing-laughing-laughing with friend or similar. Freaking annoying.

It's a little disconcerting to begin your day with a dodge through Penn Station around police decked out in full riot gear (complete with helmets and billy clubs, etc.) I wonder what is going on here today?

People Are Assholes

I get on the elevator this afternoon with about four other people. One guy stands in the middle of one wall with his legs spread trying to take up the entire wall. I lean into one corner as close to the front (and away from him) as I possibly can get without putting my nose on the actual door (I hate to have to stand in the middle of an elevator if it's not necessary). Guy makes this huge sigh and "ARRRRRGHHHHpphhhffffftttt!!!!!!!" and grudgingly backs off a millimeter. I glance over my shoulder at him and say, "well, you have the whole wall!" I get off on my floor and mutter, "sheesh. What a dick." I hope he heard me.

Really in the mood for a wings & beer day. When, oh when, are Ellen & Ken back from South America anyway???

I've been completely remiss in my blogging for this week. For some reason I've been more tired than usual and so I just never felt like blogging from home, and things were busy enough at work that I didn't have the time much to blog from there either. No matter, you didn't miss much.

I think the highlight of the week was watching the video-taped keynote speech (by the company prez) from my company's sales meeting during our four hour department staff meeting the other day. During the speech he had the head of one of our products division come up on stage to demo some of the latest and greatest, etc. and all I could think during this entire thing was, "wow. I've seen him naked." (and now he's a bigwig -- heh). I think perhaps I've been at my company too long.

I am no kind of Irish person. Am not wearing a stitch of green (I don't think I even own anything green), I scowled today at all the people spilling out of the bars in this neighborhood, I hate corned beef & cabbage and I'm not even planning to drink any beer (green or regular) today. Some green tea maybe, but no beer.

Ran out to the gym at lunchtime and noticed that it's still snowing! From yesterday! I think I heard on the news that there is supposed to be another snow storm of some sort tomorrow and then I heard someone saying at the gym that apparently there is supposed to be a blizzard on Saturday? Crazy.

Oh, and did I mention that my group had a four hour staff meeting today? Four. Hours. During which I got to watch the guy across from me (who orders lunch separately because he's kosher) slurp and slop his Chinese food with his mouth open. It was disgusting. Certainly made me lose my appetite (which maybe isn't such a bad thing).

All the dire winter storm warnings worried me enough that I didn't end up schlepping up to the Upper East Side for running class. I hate to blow off the very first one, but I was concerned about getting there and even more concerned about getting home at a reasonable hour. I felt guilty though, so I came home and did a 30 minute running drill on the treadmill, followed by 20 minutes on the elliptical. With 3 minutes left on the elliptical machine, another girl came into the gym to workout, so I was very happy I had done my running first and also glad that my workout was almost over (I just hate sharing that gym, I don't know why). It still was a very long 3 minutes though.

Okay, it's like a blizzard out there. I somehow don't think I'm going to make it up to Central Park for running class.