At World's End

My dad and I saw Reign Over Me last week at the cheap theater; it was hardly in the regular theaters at all, and afterward my dad and I talked about what the critics had thought of it. Although I like to draw my own conclusions about a film, I do tend to care what critics think of them before I decide to buy a ticket. Dad asked me whether I saw--and enjoyed--films that weren't critically acclaimed. The answer: yes!

Tonight Bryant and I went to see the third Pirates movie. After the second, and my mom's report that the NPR review (with which I rarely disagree) had rather panned it, I wasn't expecting much--though I was still willing to pay my ten dollars to see it on opening night.

It was worth the money.

The film was thoroughly pretty, highly witty, and had an excellent score. Although it was a bit on the long side, only the battle scenes seemed to drag at times. Because, really, can you have too much of Johnny Depp swaggering and pontificating in eyeliner? I think not.

Overheard behind us during the previews: "Transformers? Oh yeah... they're more than meets the eye!"

Desert Hot Springs, 7:50 p.m.

Convincing

People,

I just registered for the Twin Cities Marathon. Naturally, I'm making my list of reasons after the fact, to convince myself that I haven't just spent way too much money for the privilege of working my body way too hard, doubling my food bill, taking valuable time away from my studies, and generally being out of my mind.

I'm running the TCM because...

1. It's a chance to explore my new home cities in a totally new way
2. It's an excuse to keep running with my long run partner
3. It's an excuse to keep running with my short run partners
4. It gives me the chance to live in a marathoner's body again
5. I have too much time and money on my hands
6. I don't want 5:45 to be my last time on a marathon (you don't even get a shirt if you can't finish this one in under 6!)
7. I wish I was fast and strong like the people who win these things
8. If I'm not a PhD superstar, I'm at least a serious runner
9. Ed said the course goes right by his house and that he'd throw a party (I just remembered this one!)
10. April told me her running mantra, and it's magic
11. Running gives you good biceps...
12. ...and abs
13. ...and of course, legs
14. You don't get a runner's high without really working for it
15. When you're in marathon shape, you feel like you can do anything (when you're not too tired to do anything)
16. It's an excuse to get some color on my legs
17. It's an excuse to get outside, period
18. Maybe this would merit buying a ForeRunner!
19. It would definitely merit a new pair of shoes
20. It gives me something to blog about

Sigh.

Running down a dream...

So yesterday my dad, sister, brother-and-law and I ran the Wine Country Half Marathon, between Santa Ynez and Solvang, California. Afterward I asked Bryant (who came out from Vegas for the weekend!) to take a picture of my hugely muscle-bound post-race legs; unfortunately, this is the only photographic documentation I have so far of the event, although I'll try to post more pictures as they become available. April and I finished together at just over 2:14; Dad and Chris were faster. Total results are here, and pictures will be here.

The course was pretty hilly, and pretty much kicked my butt. The other three were training for San Diego in three weeks (and I'm totally jealous because Seal is the surprise star for the after concert!), but this race had been my final goal (I'd only started really running again when Dad and April registered me for this race).

However, now, even in my soreness and tiredness, "The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America" is sort of calling my name. It's expensive ($85) and seems to provide in return primarily beautiful scenery and a flat course, but it does start just two miles from my front door. My weekend long run partner is doing it (for his seventh time!), and I don't want to quit marathoning on last year's finish time of 5:45--I'd like to beat my Lincoln 4:33. Unfortunately, it will sell out any day now--registration opened on the 3rd, and last year apparently all 10,500 spots went in about two weeks--so I have to decide soon. Sigh.

Oh! One more great thing about yesterday. It was a small race--only about 2000 participants---and the starting line was really informal, without pace corrals or anything. The whole group of us, including the moms, who weren't running, was close to the back of the crowd, just before the race started, when I looked up and saw, only feet in front of us, a friend I'd worked with at camp nearly 10 years ago. A friend who married Michelle Tumes. He does triathlons--or did--but it was she (Michelle Tumes!) who was running. I hugged both of them and we got to chat for a bit before the race started. It was pretty awesome. My mom laughed because she thinks I know people everywhere. I just think I'm freak-coincidence-prone.

'Not sure if this is a good or a bad sign

This morning I embarked on my Saturday four-mile run at 9:07, half an hour later than I usually leave with my friend Lynsi, who, after knee trouble following our run a week ago, thought she should rest this weekend. Instead of riding to the lakes as we usually do, I decided to do a loop directly from home.

By the time I finished the run, I was pretty exhausted--and subsequently disheartened about my preparedness for not only tomorrow's 10-miler, but next week's race. To add insult to injury, when I finished the loop, my cell phone read 10:06--a 14.5 mile pace! I knew the last few miles had seemed really long and that I hadn't been a speed demon, but didn't think I'd been that slow.

I was relieved to discover, when I finally turned my computer on, that instead of running this 4-mile loop, I had accidentally run this 6-mile loop. Yes, that's how directionally challenged I am; I had to ask the Internet what Bryant (or anyone else with a built-in mental map) could have told me easily.

It's also evidence that running makes one (me, anyway) not only crazy but stupid. Last year I remember stashing water and nutrition at carefully-calculated strategic points along the trail, only to attempt the math later as I was running and discover that I could barely add, let alone subtract (or, heaven forbid, divide) in my head after just a few trail miles. My first 26.2 mile run--the Lincoln Marathon--turned me into a babbling, circumambulating simpleton in the single-minded pursuit of calories (though the circumambulating, at least, was thankfully a transitory effect!). My conversational skills also suffer when I'm training (let alone running!); perhaps it's less my need to explain why I would want to do so much running, or talk about why it's "interesting," but rather the mass death of brain cells.

One could perhaps argue that training does improve me in some way; after all, I was applying to M.A. programs while training for my first marathon, and to PhD programs while training for my second, and got positions in both cases. These could certainly be happy accidents or unrelated, but I've also made it this far through grad school (knock on wood...) with neither massive breakdowns nor psychotropic pharmaceuticals--just the gradual, gentle death of brain cells to pavement-pounding (which is at least better for my liver--and midsection!--than other methods for accomplishing the same).

Best of all, races are a great excuse to travel--I leave for California on Thursday! Now, if only my 20-page paper slips by as easily as those extra two miles this morning, I'll be in great shape.

Memege

Tagged by Mandy...

A-Available or Single? Quirkytogether?
B-Best Friend: Several, from both high school and college.
C-Cake or Pie: My mom's pecan pie.
D-Drink of Choice: I love Dunn Bros' caramel macchiato!
E-Essential Item(s): Contact lenses. I'm an invalid without them.
F- Favourite Colour(s): Silver.
G- Gummy Bears or Worms? Worms--the sour ones!
H- Hometown: I think I probably still count Auburn; I lived there for six years and my parents stayed for another six after I left.
I- Indulgence: Sleeping in. I indulge too often.
J- January or February: I hate winter in the Midwest. This year, February was colder. Painfully so.
K- Kids: Teaching them this summer!
L- Life is incomplete without: Education.
M- Marriage Date: Bryant is my favorite wedding date--the last few were his cousin's, my sister's, and his brother's.
N- Number of Siblings: Two, a younger sister and a younger brother.
O- Oranges or Apples? "Although they are both fruit, they have infinite similarities and differences."
P- Phobias/Fears: Elevators, losing my sight, losing my mind.
Q- Favourite Quote: I like this one from Umberto Eco: "The need to fall in love. Some things you can feel coming. You don't fall in love because you fall in love; you fall in love because of the need, desperate, to fall in love. When you feel that need, you have to watch your step: like having drunk a philter, the kind that makes you fall in love with the first thing you meet. It could be a duck-billed platypus." And this one from Rainer Maria Rilke: "But those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious."
R- Reasons to smile: I have large teeth and use them to my advantage.
S- Season: Summer.
T- Tag Three: Voth, Daniel, Carissa
U- Unknown Fact about Me: I appear to be allergic to my new mascara.
V – Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals? Vegetarian.
W- Worst Habit(s): I'd try to be original here... but procrastination and wasting time really are my worst habits.
X – X-rays or Ultrasounds?: I try not to make a habit of either...
Y- Your Favourite Foods: Recently, locally, and not cooked by me, I am loving soup from the co-op, Las Lomas tamales, the hummus and veggie sandwiches at the coffee shop, and the Bad Waitress's tofu scramble.
Z- Zodiac: Virgo.

Gems

Here are a few of my favorite sentences from this last crop of comparison essays:

"Comparing Cezanne's and Hartley's still life paintings is like comparing apples and oranges. Although they are both fruit, they have infinite similarities and differences."

"This building [Palazzo Medici-Riccardi] exhibits linear perspective, created by Brunelleschi, whose style affected the buildings' architect, Michelozzo Di Bartolommeo."

"He has peach colored lips and a clotted chin."

"The second most defined shape would be the chair and the musical instrument with the flowing oval triangle shape, which curves very flowingly."

"Last, but not least the different but yet similar styles used in the two sculptures also show how they have similar ideas of the human figure and that it looks like."

"This modern artwork is comparable to Rembrandt's for they are both self portraits made from oil on canvas."

"Also an oil painting, "Modern Bohemia"'s size (65 1/8 x 49 1/4in) plays a part in being able to create awareness of the paintings features such as vibrant colors and a distinct separation of foreground, middle, and background. The similarities of social context and overall content outweight the initial viewed differences of the two pieces."

"Truth and ugly portray realism in the painting."

"The malformation of color creates feeling for the piece. In Manet's "Olympia" despite the presence of the servant, it is as though the servant does not exist in the painting."

"A space can be defined by using sculpture to depict what a person will encounter upon traveling through an entranceway."

"It seems only fitting that such an image be placed in front of the home belonging to a group that learn the trade of producing substances which are purely the result of what material those substances are composed of."

"In my comparison of The Large Blue Horses (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) by Franz Marc and Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio's Conversion of Saint Paul (fig. 24-18), both paintings have been their own religious meaning while being painted on the same medium; however, they contrast with different stories and linear style."

"He needs some pettin' and lovin' on his head..."

This video (via Dave's blog) made me weep. Bryant doesn't understand why I find these things so funny, and I suppose I don't either, exactly.

But wow, is this way more fun than Heidegger.