Marian's back!

I had to call a library yesterday, and I swear-to-god the lady I spoke with was Marian the Librarian. The voice was identical. Now, I totally get that the original Marian wasn't actually a librarian, but in fact a crazy yoga teacher with a giant camel toe, but the voice! The "hehe"! It was creepy. I had flashbacks.

In other news, I walked the butte yesterday morning with two friends. Bootie was so fast she jogged laps around the top while waiting for me and Jules to catch up. Asshole. I'm blaming my slowness on the fact that we were walking with wee Gertie, the world's cutest golden retriever puppy. Seriously. Why did I not get a golden retreiver? Why did I have to get a "smart" dog? Dumb dogs are awesome. They obey. Did you know that? Also, Gertie gets tired. Toward the end of the walk Jules jogged a little bit, and poor lil Gertie (I'll find a pic, promise) was dragging on the end of her leash. Do you know what I have to do to tire out Margaux? If you do, please, please tell me.

Anywho, I felt as we walked that I was being punished for the (!) cigarettes I'd smoked over the weekend. But by the time I went to bed last night, I was coughing up green things, and my throat was on fire and it sort of felt like there were vice grips on my sinuses.

I think it's the exercise that did me in.

Wagon: The thing that I get off and on depending on my mood.

Yesterday was day one of not being a lazy-ass whiner chubby-bunny face-stuffer.

Really. After more than a week of sleeping 10-12 hours a night, and evenings spent in the company of my couch and a bowl of spaghetti (Really, at one point a friend stopped by, and I was watching Sex and the City in the dark, eating a bowl of spaghetti, in a filthy house. He asked, "Where's Roomie?" I told him, monotone, "He's out of town." My friend looked around the room and said, "So, are you just pissing and shitting yourself where you sit, too?" "Uh huh. I'll clean it up before he gets back.") I've decided it's time.

Yesterday, I did my first pilates class in ages, and discovered my that one of my instructors' sister is a poet. Now, when I heard that, I thought, "Oh, poet. Uh huh. Sure. I'm sure she's a real good poet." But it turns out she recently won a prize I was familiar with, and was recently published in Poetry, the journal I have a collection of going back to 2007. She's a real muthafuckin poet, y'all. Not sure why that matters, except to think that there are real poets out there who are related to real people I know somehow lets a tiny light into the black-ass darkness that's descended over my head, Eeyore-style. (Poetess also apparently went to college with a close friend of mine, who doesn't know the pilates instructor. It's all very strange in my world. Everyone knows everyone. Especially ex-boyfriends.)

Then this morning a good friend came and met me and Margaux to walk That Damn Butte, as I decided to name it. "Somehow, today, they made the road to the top extra long and extra steep," I thought all the way up, as my friend's ass disappeared ahead of me as the road curved around the butte. I think it may have had something do do with a) Only getting about 5 hours of sleep last night b) Did I mention all that couch time? All that delicious, wonderful, yummy nummy snoozy couch time? God, I could go lay down right now ... and c) All those cigarettes I've been smoking.

Gasp! Cigarettes! The horror!

You're telling me. I am starting to get wrinkles, people. And even though I quit smoking for almost five months recently, my stupid face decided to start the shadow of one of those heinous smoker lines around my mouth. The thing is, I have a real purdy mouth. Or at least I used to! Wah!

Anyway. One self-improvement project at a time.

Shit

Best part of today's outing? When Margaux rolled in human shit.

Wait, did I say "best"? I meant worst. Yup, that was the worst. I couldn't even bring myself to look when Roomie took her over to the pile to be sure she knew what she was in trouble for. But I'm also a lil pathetic; her terrified yelps when he dunked her in the creek to clean her off still sort of broke my heart.

Another awesome thing about when your dog's wearing human shit? Being paranoid that she's going to brush up against you for the rest of the day. Because she has shit on her. Human shit.

And why do dogs like to roll in shit, anyway? Google tells me it may be to mask her smell so she can hunt more effectively, but, hello Margaux: Humans are the most dangerous animal on earth. Masking your pathetic little 45 pound dog smell with the smell of shit from some redneck who doesn't know not to leave his turds and toilet paper in the woods isn't going to help you catch a squirrel. It's going to make the squirrel think that a) you may be a human, so you may have a gun and b) you've been drinking Budweiser, so you're probably in a foul mood.

Heeling

Lordy it's been a shitter of a week. Especially considering that I'm about to work my 12th day in a row, so that shitter week? Extra long.

Tuesday morning, a friend and I decided to try doing a wee jog/walk together. We decided to meet at 6 a.m., which she was nervous about. She asked me to text her at 5:30.

"Good morning! I'm about to go watch the beautiful sunrise!"

A couple of minutes later, as I was putting the I'm a Mean Mommy Pinchey Collar on Margaux, I got a text reply.

"Dude. You are not allowed to be perky."

Fair.

But we did it, and the sun rose by the river as we trotted and chatted and our dogs sniffed beside us. It felt wonderful, but within two hours my heel, the one with the dreaded plantar fasciitis, was hurting badly enough I knew it was too much, too soon. Eff.

But my gym membership is about up, and I'm too broke to buy a new one. I have only one option.

Face plant

So I need to start remembering a camera on outings. Took my new cross country skis out yesterday, and I'm really sad I don't have pics of the many and multiple face plants I took. There were a couple where Suze (who would have had the camera, since I made her carry the only pack) had a good view of me flailing in the snow, trying to get at least one of my skis out of my ass and back underneath my legs.

The worst part of the trip was stopping to warm our fingers in the drying hut about two miles in. The warming hut itself was actually quite nice, with a toasty little fire going (we neglected to bring brandy. Bad move.), but the D-bag vacationers showing off for each other ruined it.

D-bag 1: Oh, I don't know, man, my wife loves Seattle, but I've only made it as far as Sea-Tac. (Wipes a crumb off the shoulder of his Pata-Gucci jacket)
D-bag 2: It's pretty great man, in fact we're thinking about offering $450 on a forclosure in Redmond.
D-bag 2's Wife: It'd be a lot of work.
D-bag 2: Oh yeah, at least 100 G's of remodeling cost, plus all the time you'd have to put into it.
Ells: You ready to get the eff out of here?
Suze: Absolutely.

Seriously, D-bags. It's the great recession. Save your buying up $400,000 forceclosure talks for your country club locker room. Don't do it at the free sno-play area. We're on used equipment. We don't want to hear about your money.

Face plant

So I need to start remembering a camera on outings. Took my new cross country skis out yesterday, and I'm really sad I don't have pics of the many and multiple face plants I took. There were a couple where Suze (who would have had the camera, since I made her carry the only pack) had a good view of me flailing in the snow, trying to get at least one of my skis out of my ass and back underneath my legs.

The worst part of the trip was stopping to warm our fingers in the drying hut about two miles in. The warming hut itself was actually quite nice, with a toasty little fire going (we neglected to bring brandy. Bad move.), but the D-bag vacationers showing off for each other ruined it.

D-bag 1: Oh, I don't know, man, my wife loves Seattle, but I've only made it as far as Sea-Tac. (Wipes a crumb off the shoulder of his Pata-Gucci jacket)
D-bag 2: It's pretty great man, in fact we're thinking about offering $450 on a forclosure in Redmond.
D-bag 2's Wife: It'd be a lot of work.
D-bag 2: Oh yeah, at least 100 G's of remodeling cost, plus all the time you'd have to put into it.
Ells: You ready to get the eff out of here?
Suze: Absolutely.

Seriously, D-bags. It's the great recession. Save your buying up $400,000 forceclosure talks for your country club locker room. Don't do it at the free sno-play area. We're on used equipment. We don't want to hear about your money.