The Ragnar Relay start this Friday at some ridiculously early hour that only race coordinators can plot.  I want to build a time machine so I can go back to the day when I said that I would participate.  I must have been drunk, deranged, unwell, depressed…I feel taken advantage of.  It’s not so much the running part, as hanging out in a van with 5 other sweaty, tired people for 24 hours.  However, teams come back year after year to run this thing so that is mildly heartening.

I read a past team blog and apparently they barely slept and some of their members suffered from runners diarrhea.  Neat. This deal just gets sweeter by the day.  I’ll be sweaty, stinky, exhausted, hungry, cranky and, now, apparently also shitting my brains out on the side of some dark farm road.

Bungee Jumping…

No, I haven’t done it but I did take a trapeze class on Friday in NYC!  Blessed NYC.  Walking the streets of Manhattan, I began to wonder why I ever moved away… and then I remembered it was for a job I don’t have and a boy who doesn’t want me.  But I was talking about trapeze.  It was pretty scary and the bar is deceptively heavy- it feels like it’s going to drag you of the tiny platform and tear your arm off before dropping you unceremoniously on the net below.  Still, I mustered courage and I managed to hang upside down, do a flip, AND a catch with an experience trapezer.  

I think it helps that someone is yelling directions at you in a militaristic type way from the safety of the ground.  If someone is shouting orders at you while you hurl through the air, you have less time to contemplate things like falling, breaking bones, smashing your face on the platform, or farting loudly when you try to do a trick.  

Job Hunting…

Ok, so this is not officially on my to-do list but it’s certainly something I need to, you know, do.  I had an interview on Friday afternoon with this woman who is having serious separation anxiety from her former assistant- JANE.  The whole interview was: JANE was a marvelous note taker, JANE used to organize my reports in perfect order, JANE used to relay messages so concisely…. JANE is in a sound proof room in my basement. It was like she was going through a break-up.  I wanted to call JANE and tell her to close her curtains and get a restraining order ASAP. Something tells me that no one can fill JANE’S shoes and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to try.

Volunteering…

The women’s domestic violence group was a bust.  I went to the orientation but, while I knew they were a faith-based group, I didn’t realize how big a role it played in the “healing” of battered women.  One of the questionnaires asked me what I would do as a volunteer to promote their christian beliefs… uhhh, nothing.  I’m not religious and they should probably have people working with them who are committed to their spiritual work.

Campaign gig is good- lots of busy work but delightfully mind-numbing and easy.  I basically make copies, prepare packets, enter data, and pretend I’m getting paid for it.  The people are nice and, hell, it gets me out of the house for a few precious hours in between Gilmore Girls episodes.

Who cares that I can’t afford my favorite brand of dental floss or that I’m seriously considering selling my rapidly dying eggs to a fertility center, I’m going to work for free!  I have lined up two (count ‘em: TWO) volunteer gigs.  The first is at a domestic violence shelter and independent living program for victims.  The second is at the Deeds for Governor campaign office.  This satisfies another item on my list: working on a campaign.  I’m multi-tasking, people!  Two birds with one stone and all that.

I practically skipped into the campaign office after reading the article in the Washington Post on Bob McDonnell’s anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-working mother blueprint from graduate school.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083103045.html

I start tomorrow and continue on through next week and beyond.  I’m a little apprehensive about interacting with people who are not my parents or my cabbage patch kid, but I shall persevere!

Non-Fiction Fun…

My book this month is Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Yes, I’m sure I’m the last person to read it.  I took a stab at it back when I was employed and using public transportation.  Some of us simply don’t have the upper body strength to hold on to a subway pole, balance in heels, and hold that sucker up high enough to read.  There were safety concerns.  My padded down old bedroom should be sufficient for my second attempt.

I’m running in the Ragnar Relay on September 25th-26th.  24 hours, 2 vans, 12 people, 193.2 miles, and 3 legs each.  The things people do in the name of fun.

http://www.ragnarrelay.com/

When this was pitched to me by my so-called friends, words like costumes, running, and beer were used.  It sounded like a halloween party in sneakers.  Turns out I’m running 6.8 miles, then 3.1 miles, then 3.8 miles. 

Still no word on how many water stations are along the way and the medic teams that will be trolling the area do not inspire confidence.  Plus, I’m learning about new gross foods like running goo- an easily digestible carbohydrate snack for the runner on the go.  Yum.

I ran a mile and a half the other day and threw-up but I’m officially blaming that on the chicken sandwich I ate at the mall.  Yesterday I ran 4.7 miles around Burke Lake.  I think it’s perfectly normal to sleep for 8 hours in one afternoon…

The upswing?  I love my adidas thermo system sneakers.  Love them.  Zero (repeat: zero) blisters.  If I had a boyfriend he’d be very jealous of my relationship with my new running shoes.  If I had a boyfriend. 

$40 dollars on mad sale at Broadway Shoes!!

This morning I made Tomato Egg Cups and, in the process, scalded my mother with a raw but lava hot egg.  Note: Place the pan DIRECTLY below the heat in the oven.  This may seem (obnoxiously) obvious but, for those of us whose culinary ventures include ice cubes and cereal, this is key.  The second round of egg cups were a smashing success.  Recipe below!  Yes, it’s very easy but my present goals are not to set the kitchen on fire.

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2009/08/breakfast-at-your-desk-tomato.html

Knitting…

Here is the scarf I started sometime in early 2007.  I bought the yarn from a ridiculously expensive boutique store at the height of the knitting craze.  I had plans, boy- I’d channel Julia Roberts, I’d launch my own line of trendy knitwear, I’d be featured in Vogue Knitting magazine.  I’m giving myself until September 15th (2009) to finish the blasted thing.

30 years old.  Lost my job working for a prominent former Senator.  Could no longer afford my lovely borough apartment in NY.  Moved back to Virginia and in with my parents.  Recently single but not by choice.  I spend too much time watching West Wing re-runs, creeping on Facebook, and eating my emotions.

The Objective

With $200 dollars in the bank account but rich in free time, this never-finishes-anything girl will attempt to accomplish all the goals on her life to-do list.  It will take guts, monetary innovation, patience, drive, and determination but even if I have to sell all my clothes on ebay, I will finish.

The History

Years ago I read a story about a mother who lost her daughter in the twin towers on 9/11.  While sorting through her daughter’s things, she found a to-do list.  It wasn’t a list of errands but a wish list for her life, all the adventures, big and small, that she would never get a chance experience.  That day I began a to-do list of my own and vowed to finish it. 

6 years, 5 apartments, and one economic recession later, the list remains woefully unfulfilled… until now.

The List (in no particular order)

Learn French

Start a foundation

Get Published

Learn to manage money… what is a bond exactly?

Bungy Jump

Learn to cook already!!

Knit a scarf

Travel alone

Read one non-fiction book a month

Visit all the countries in the world (or as many as I can before I, well, die)

Write a screenplay and/or a story

Throw a fabulous dinner party

Take an improv class

Produce a short film or play

Hike Kilimanjaro

Ask a guy out on a date

Learn CPR (again)

Snowboard

Volunteer

Play a musical instrument

Get a dog

Practice a random act of kindness each day

Scuba dive

Apply to graduate school

Write to the great teachers in my life and say thank you

Work on a campaign

Run for office

Make Thanksgiving dinner

Redecorate my living space

Run in a race

Read War & Peace (and all the other classic novels you were too lazy to read in school)