Afternoon Cocktail

My mid-work-day walk had me find a really random, really old cemetery tucked in a park near my building. Don't mind if I do. The experience was obviously noteworthy.

What it wasn't: good for my allergies.
What it was: good for my mortality.

I feel so congested. I feel so alive.

Spotted

This afternoon I was at a stoplight next to one of those buses that transports prisoners. I noticed that like any typical bus, it had an emergency exit; and I had to think, Should that be there? Morally sliced.

Said Better

My brother Gentzy has some pretty decent ideas every now and then. This one (pulled from an email) might be his crowning jewel:

Also, I have a suggestion for solving our country’s economic woes and the terrestrial woes of the entire country of Japan: let’s give them South Dakota. It’s not near any major fault lines, it’s far from the ocean and its tsunamis, it has business-friendly tax codes, and there is plenty of space.  If we give it to the Japanese, they will have that state humming in 4-6 years.  And, TADOW, they don’t sink in the ocean and we are back on top as the unquestionable world superpower.


He would call this South Tokyota. I think I would call it Nintendo Dakota. But we both agree it's the new San Fran and the street style would be out of this world. 

While we're on the subject of soft plagiarism, my friend Mary said this regarding bucket lists, and I couldn't agree more:

i am not ambitious enough to compile a list of 100 items

unless i googled bucket lists

And I know for a fact that she's done this. I just thought I'd share.

Tangled

I watched this tonight. And it was great.

The best part? When it started, and we all began floating away to that Pixar world, Rebekah whispered "I feel safe." And I think she spoke for all of us. (In my mind it was a whisper.)

The worst part? Spoiler alert: he cuts off her hair and it turns brown and spiky. I might not hate this so much (hang on a minute brunette sisters), if that very thing didn't happen to me about four months ago. Except trade heroic prince with heterosexual hair stylist (I don't trust those and neither should any of you), and trade fairytale for rat tail, and you get a movie that just hits a little too close to home.

It was still awesome though. Even if it did borrow a little heavy from Chasing Liberty, Portrait of Dorian Gray, and the Elizabeth Smart trial.

RECOMMEND

NYCarnal (Picture Heavy)

I can’t quite assign reason to my lust-love for New York City. Every time I go, it uses, abuses, and overfeeds me. And the last two times, I’ve spent a bus ride home feeling like I need to buy DC a string of pearls. But so help me, I just can’t stop thinking about her. 


Top Three Picks This Trip:


3. Pretending like I didn’t want to pretend to be engaged to Grant at Tiffany’s.
2. Central parking.
1. And my favorite: running for doughnuts. Probably because it happened twice. We sprint-ran to the infamous “Doughnut Plant,” which turned out sub- to well-below par (according to my friends anyway, little do they know I stopped even tasting sugar somewhere around 2 pm). Turns out it didn’t close for another hour and despite our best flirting*, they wouldn't give us any more of their crappy doughnuts for free. I would still say it was worth the journey though. During one particularly moving stretch of our jaunt, a large Latino man yelled out his affinity for running white girls at us, then cheered, "run white girls, run!" Touched.


*"Flirting" read: Rebekah speaking in terms of economics and ROI, and me pressing my cheek onto his window front, making “smush face” until the sweaty worker waved us both away like fleas.

Related notes: Happy birthday Kat. Thanks for making this happen Melissa. Rebekah: you get me.

Georgetown

DC can bug me. Like in traffic or when GW med students discredit my Sleep Cycle app (I'm looking at you Friday night dinner party). But more often than not, I can't help but love it. Especially today when I ran through the little slice of colonial heaven, Georgetown. I stopped for a second when I saw this line for Georgetown Cupcakes.

Jane hates cupcakes so I sent her a picture of it. Part because I miss her, and part to make her feel more alone in the world. While I was wrapping up the text, I look up to see this blonde little angel running toward me, beaming from ear to ear, and looking me right in the eye. He never broke stride, opened his arms, and gave my legs a giant hug. Your guess is as good as mine. His mom was trying to restrain him and I noticed she was deaf. My ASL is a little rusty, and I couldn't immediately recall how to say "I would rather cling to the legs of a sweaty stranger than be chained to a backpack leash too," so instead I just clutched at my heart and smiled at her and probably let the hug go on for too long. I took this picture of  him after he turned away and before he escaped from the leash again to go eat those rocks in the corner.

I didn't stop thinking about Georgetown all day. Saturday shoppers, overeaters, and aggressively affectionate toddlers? I think I'm falling in love with you. And I can't be certain, but I have a feeling it's got something to do with the cupcakes.

*Photos 3-5 just go in the category of other cool stuff I saw on my run. But all photos are included under the label: ways to make a Saturday run as long as if you had walked it.

Sleep Cycle for iPhone

I frighten myself with the deals I would make in the morning to score more minutes of sleep. But a few months ago, I got this awesome app on my phone that not only tracks my REM cycles during the night, but pulls me comfortably out of sleep within 20 minutes of the time I am supposed to wake up by alerting me before I start taking that delicious dive back into deep unconscious bliss, below the realms of dreaming. I call it my Narnia. But the best part of the app is that once your sleep cycle has completed, it gives you stats on what you did that night and how long you slept. It's the beginning stages of this app, so the line chart is pretty basic without much detail. But I have faith it won't be long before it's telling me exactly what I was doing during those peaks and valleys of my dreams.

Last night's cycle:

People who owe me thank yous/apologies from last night's dream: Kari for saving our lives. Who then became Johnny, who was suspiciously chummy with our captors. So probably both of you.

You want this app.