running the half marathon was by far the hardest, or at least most time-consuming, of the goals on my 101 list, but probably the most worthwhile as well. over the past five months i’ve started to think of myself as a runner again. being a runner was once very important to me, and it’s amazing to realize that i hadn’t lost it forever.

the race itself was the easy part – it took five months and 250 miles and oodles of discipline to get TO the starting line; once i got there it was only another 13 miles to the finish. and i had the support of thousands of other runners and people cheering along the sidelines. (thank you, to all the friends and family who sent messages of encouragement over the past few days. it meant the world that you were thinking of me). i’ve trained enough that i felt confident i was going to finish, so my goal was just to have fun and feel good about the way i ran it. i finished in 2 hours 11 minutes and 2 seconds. that was just one minute over my goal time, which is a little disappointing, but i’m not wallowing in it. now that i’ve completed one half, i have a baseline for future race goals. i placed 692 out of 999 women in my age group. for the next race my goal is to be in the top half, which based on this year’s results means a 2:05 time. no problem.

and yes, that means that i think there is going to be more running in my future. my friend callie is talking about us doing a marathon together next year. six months ago i couldn’t fathom what it would take to complete a marathon. now that i’ve done the half i can imagine it (imagine the pain and the training time, also!) maybe next year? we’ll see. over all i feel pretty good today (2 days later), my sore muscles are already gone, which means i think i was in pretty good shape for the way i ran it. the only nagging pain left is in my left foot. i’m hoping it’s just a bruise, because it’s making me pretty gimpy today. and if not for the foot thing, i’m ready to go back out and run again!

the half marathon is tomorrow! i have my racing bib, my timing chip, my cheering squad. i’ve been fighting a bit of a cold for a few days now, but if i can continue to hold it off with vitamin C and sleep for another day i’ll be good. the weather is supposed to be sunny and 70, perfect for the post-run BBQ.

today i offer you my running playlist (in alphabetic order because my ipod’s like that. normally the song order is randomized):

19th Nervous Breakdown – The Rolling Stones
3 Small Words – Josie and the Pussycats
4000 Miles – Blackalicious
99 Luftballons – Nena
Are You Out There – Dar Williams
As Cool as I Am – Dar Williams
Baba O’Riley – The Who
Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
Believing Is Art – Spoon
Better Things – Dar Williams
Blue – EIFFEL 65
Cry Baby Cry – Throwing Muses
Dio – Tenacious D
Dyer Maker – Led Zeppelin
Friendship – Tenacious D
Georgia – BETTY
Gone Daddy Gone – Gnarls Barkley
Happy Boys and Girls – Aqua
Harbor – Vienna Teng
Hey Julie – Fountains of Wayne
Hey Ya! – OutKast
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – The Proclaimers
I Predict A Riot – Kaiser Chiefs
It’s the End of the World (and I Feel Fine) – REM
Laid – James
Little Plastic Castle – Ani DiFranco
Manic Monday – The Bangles
Material Girl – Madonna
Mr. Brightside – The Killers
One Hell of a Life – Katell Koenig
Out of Range (electric) – Ani Difranco
Outta Me Onto You – Ani Difranco
Overture/And All That Jazz – Catherine Zeta-Jones, et al
Pretend to be Nice – Josie and the Pussycats
Pretty Deep – Tanya Donelly
Rebellion (Lies) – The Arcade Fire
Rock Lobster – The B-52’s
Rock Your Socks – Tenacious D
Shameless – Ani Difranco
Sometimes (Lester Piggot) – James
Spin Around – Josie and the Pussycats
Take A Walk – Spoon
Take The Fifth – Spoon
Teenagers, Kick Our Butts – Dar Williams
The Obvious Child – Paul Simon
Tribute – Tenacious D

at lauren’s good advice i went to the renegade craft fair in wicker park this morning. anthropomorphic plush creatures seemed to be de rigeur (felt doughnut with eyes, anyone? how about a plush pot sticker named li’l sticker?). my weakness is paper and book arts, and my friend becky’s thing was anything encased in a blob of glass or resin. fortunately for my pocketbook, i’m just crafty enough myself that when i go to craft fairs like this i’m prevented from buying things because i keep thinking, “i could make that!” of course, i probably won’t ever have the time, but it helps keep the cash in my wallet. so do the prices, actually. i don’t begrudge any of the artists their right to make a profit (or at the very least support their crafty habit), but $35 for a t-shirt is sadly out of my price range. for the sake all DYI designers out there today hopefully not all the shoppers were as poor (and potentially crafty) as i am.

i got home all full of project ideas and spent the afternoon hanging pictures on the walls (we’re about to sign our second year’s lease, so i figure it’s about time we look like we’ve moved in). then i made the wise-but-un-fun choice to add up our bills and figured out that we have no money for crafty projects this month. so sad. i’ve got about $100-worth of yarn awaiting fall projects, so i’ll have to stick to the knitting for now.

if i DID have money to invest in the craft fair today, however, by far and away my favorite items were the eerie, narrative paintings by jaime zollars. check them out at www.jamiezollars.com

by far and away the most time-consuming of items on my 101 list, the half marathon is just two weeks away now. i ran my first 10-miler today. this is a big milestone for me, because it’s the farthest i’ve ever run, even back when i was running cross country in high school. it’s true that on race day i still have to go 3 miles further than i’ve run now, but what seemed impossible for so long (i’ve been thinking about running a half for about 10 years now) doesn’t seem quite so beyond the realm of possibility any more. i just keep putting one foot down after the other. and hope i can stave off injury or illness for a couple more weeks.

i spent much of monday hiding from the news; trying to avoid newspapers, talk radio and television steeped in september 11 memorials. five years after the september 11 terrorist attacks i find myself less prepared to talk about them than i was right after it happened. mostly when i think about september 11 i feel resentful and angry about the many ways in which the events of that day have been twisted, spun, remade and remodeled for a myriad of different purposes, some well-meaning distortions, some blatant manipulations, for the personal or political or financial gain. but if i’m honest with myself, then i have to admit that it’s easier to feel angry about the political implications than it is for me to contemplate the untimely and horrific deaths of all those people. i didn’t know anyone personally who died on september 11, and so maybe for that reason i’ve never worked through the grief process, because i don’t really have a grief to call my own. but on monday when i turned on the radio and heard the names of the dead being read, my eyes filled with tears and i had to turn the radio back off. maybe i haven’t gotten past the deep secretive guilt that it took me hours on that incongruously beautiful september morning to fully comprehend the gravity of what had occurred. i was visiting a dear friend in san francisco that day. i woke to the insistent ring of my cellphone; a repeated phone messages from my mother extorting me to turn on the television. i was sitting cross-legged on the couch, wrapped in a blanket over my pj’s, a cat climbing across my lap, when the second tower fell, watched it live on television. my friend woke up and we watched the news in stunned silence for what seemed like hours, until the news became repetitive and tasteless (DAY OF TERROR, read the Fox News graphic). we wandered down the eerily quiet hills of San Francisco onto Market street and ordered breakfast at the only cafe that was open. i was lifting a bite of eggs to my mouth when my friend said, “do you think this is like Pearl Harbor? that we’ll remember where we were when it happened?” and we looked at each other and it was at that moment that i realized the gravity of what had occured. my condolences, to all of the people who lost family and loved ones on that day. i’m sorry i don’t know how to talk about this. i’m sorry i ate eggs the day that your loved ones died. i’m sorry i couldn’t listen to the names of the dead being read. they deserve that, at least.

ah, there is much to blog about: wales, oxford, the kidchamp nuptials, london, the wonders of sainsbury’s red label tea, the quad cities, another wedding, jetlag, bowling injuries.

we’ll start with the most mundane and also the most idiotic: bowling injuries. so k&b were married this weekend, in the quad cities, and the rehearsal dinner was pizza and beer at the local bowling alley. now i am not a good bowler, but that’s okay because i have very little ego riding on my bowling skills. i’m quite content to do the silly dance where you wave at the already-sailing-down-the-lane ball in the direction you want it to go in. i don’t mind slip-sliding around in the dorky shoes that make my big feet look like clown feet, or the fact that i have to find the only child’s 7-lb ball in the room because i’m too wimpy to throw a real ball. but i reached a new low this weekend when i actually slammed the bowling ball (mid-forward-swing) into my own leg, leaving a giant purple bruise and egg-sized welt on the outside of my right knee. really. i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried.

pictured: the bride-to-be posing with The Hammer, a ball so heavy we had to lob it sideways down the lane.

turns out that central park isn’t a thickly-forested den of thieves and murderers shrouded in eternal darkness, after all. my father was not a fan of new york when i was a kid, and, absorbing his opinion, i always pictured central park as this incongruous tangle of forest that was tolerated, rather than cultivated, by the rest of the city. as though the colonization of manhattan had gone just fine until they got to the center and discovered why the natives had given them such a bargain: the epicenter of the island was indomitable jungle. as it turns out, it’s quite lovely on a summer’s afternoon, and filled with sun-dappled tourists, new yorkers, and those wacky rollerskaters.

to say that hot weather makes me cranky would be an understatement. it actually sucks my will to live. depending on which report you believe, the heat index today fell somewhere between 105 and 110. in chicago. where all the buildings were built before central air. monday was just as bad, and now they’re saying that it’ll be thursday before any cooler air arrives. at 10pm as i’m writing this, the heat index is 102.

of course, i have no real right to complain – my health isn’t threatened, after all, i’m just grumpy, sweaty, and unproductive. just let the power go out at our apartment, like it did for most of the central/south side of chicago yesterday, and then i’ll really start wailing. of course, if there is no power, i won’t be able to blog about it anyway. bad for me, good for the rest of you. this heat wave has swept the entire nation, so pretty much everyone reading this (with the possible exception of mari) has either just survived the heat wave, is in the middle of it with me, or it’s coming for you now.

the first circle of hell was for those sinners in limbo. that’s a fairly accurate description of how we’re feeling about now. when will this ever end?

whoo! hanging out on Wrigley Field with Cyndi Lauper. and yeah, her violinist really was dressed like Abe Lincoln.

an endearing touch, the props intern who built her torch was part of her entourage, apparently traveling all the way to chicago just to transport the papier mâchè torch safely.

i was working the 3rd base stage, which meant that i got to spend a couple of days hanging out in the cubs dugout. come on, admit it, you secretly want to know what their urinal looks like. and you can’t miss my shot of the hot gay cowboys.

“that’s not white trash, it’s undergraduate.”

(andy kindly defending my decision(1) to gaff tape a piece of heavy orange fabric(2) over a window to block the mid-morning sun during chicago’s current heat wave)

1) admittedly, a choice of questionable interior decorating merit

2) for lack of a proper curtain rod and drapes, or the necessary funds with which to procure said drapes