American Beauty, again

We watched American Beauty again tonight. What a film that is. Holy cow! Carthatic, sad, compelling… It makes me want to do whatever it is.

Prophetic vision

While driving home from an aborted taijutsu class (only Pete and I showed up), I started daydreaming about heavy american steel pimped out with leather, chrome, and power everything, a convertible top, a diesel up front and SVG in the tank.

Give me that black ribbon over the horizon to forever, baby!

A study of the effects of negative musculoskeletal conditioning in a post-exercise environment

(Or why ya oughtta stretch after runnin’)

I did a little unwitting experiment on myself yesterday. I went for a run (5&1, 10&1, 5&1)(abbreviated, mind you, by the call of nature) in a tornado warning yesterday afternoon. The run was OK, but I came back early.

Oh, and Mom, the tornado was 35 miles south of us (by Butternut), moving away from us toward Mercer, so it’s not as dumb as it sounds.

Anyway, I got home and stretched my calves, but didn’t really feel like taking care of anything else. So I didn’t. And man, am I paying for it today. My legs are super sore and tight. I guess most everyone should have a hobbling day now and again.

Aunty Em!

So there was apparently a tornado not too far from here last night. In fact, when we were driving back from Krista and Dan’s place, we were probably within five or ten miles of it. Heck, when we were eating on their porch, the beginnings of the thing may have gone pretty much right over us.

We were hanging out, eating brats or burgers or veggie burgers or salmon burgers, depending on what letter your first name started with, and it was raining like crazy. Then, fairly rapidly, the rain let up and the sky got darker.

Meg said, “I really don’t like the color of the sky right now,” but I just poo-pooed her, We were all looking around at the clouds, though, wondering what was going on.

They all left for a movie and Meg and I went the long way around to the Four Corners Saloon so we could drive past a “house” – it’s really just a shack with a bunch of falling down outbuildings on some pretty nice land – for sale that Dan told us about. On our drive, we went from rain to no rain to driving, almost blinding rain, to no rain, to rain. I thought maybe we were just driving through some weird weather pockets or something.

We got home and the weather radio was on, so I grabbed it and brought it into Meg’s office where we were listening to it while looking at the radar. First the radio was talking about the tornado watch for our are that was in effect until midnight and I was debating staying up just to make sure all was well with things. But then the report came around to the beginning and lo and behold: there’s a tornado warning for us!

Apparently there was a tornado just north of Mellen that was moving north toward Highbridge pretty much along the highway. I did the mental math and my heart sped up a little as I realized that if the tornado maintained itself (doubtful) and its course (who knows), we’d be in line for a little action.

Fortunately, though, things calmed down before they got this far. I have no idea if the tornado even touched down last night, so I don’t know how close a thing any of this was. Still, it’s wild to think that we were right there.

Catchin up on my reports

Running

I didn’t run my final run of last week. I was feeling sick and out of sorts and it just didn’t happen. That’s OK, though. No huge deal to miss a day.

I ran on Friday (it’s the beginning of week 8 already!) . Did run 10, walk 1 x4. It’s a recovery week. My confidence in my physical ability is growing, which is good. I’m feeling better about my body image, and my running is paying dividends in taijutsu, where I feel like I can keep going with sparring or exercises longer than I was before.

I owe myself a run today, which I’ll actually probably go do pretty soon here.

Biking

I’ve decided that it’s about time to add biking to my athletic arsenel. Yesterday, I pumped up my tires and went for a 17 mile ride around the *really big* country block. It took an hour and six minutes which comes out to an average speed of 15.45 mph. That’s not too shabby at all, considering it’s pretty much been twelve or thirteen years since I’ve ridden seriously.

My plan for now is bike two or three days a week. It’s a good complement to running, and plus it’s fun! :-) At some point – maybe this winter, depending on the pool situation around here – I’ll add swimming to complete my triple threat.

Dinner and smiles

I tried to eat dinner at the the Chicago Institute of Art restaurant (which apparently is in NYC). First I got directions from a very pompous guidebook. Then, when I tried to make reservations, I was turned away by a haughty maitre d’.

It was OK, though, because when I opened my eyes, Alden was staring at me. I smiled at him, he smiled at me, and life is good.

Creative urge

I’m feeling the need to create, to study, to dive into something. I’m not sure what. Writing, maybe. Or music. Probably not CSS, but you never know. I want to feel fluent, intelligent, needed, even. So I’m going to go read a book.

Trillium

I helped make an action-adventure video game called “Trillium.” You heard it here first.