Monday, October 1, 2012

The rather UnAdella September Sunday

Sunday was a day balanced by two rather uncharacteristic occasions: first I participated in a foot race, and then I attended a baby shower!

The Epic and Intense 5K FUN RUN OF DEATH!!!! Or, um, the Bellingham Marathon Fun Run:

The former activity is generally unlike me since I am quite decidedly not the kind of person who enjoys competing, being in groups of people, or managing lines of traffic where I am passing and/or being passed closely by other people. I'm fairly sensitive to the space around me just generally. I suspect this is a mixture of factors. First, I'm an introvert (let me whip out the violins and trumpets to re-fanfare the Ballad of the Roving Introvert). Physiologically that I have a high sensitivity for dopamine, that I process each individual piece of data along a more complex and slower course in the brain and that I tend to just observe more things all at once causing my brain to become flooded and shut down (seriously, I read this in a book and stuff!). I've always had a pretty keen fight-or-flight awareness of my surroundings and any movements in my periphery. My mom finally had to comment after my fiftieth reaction to a tiny movement she'd made towards her purse that "wow, pretty much you notice everything don't you." Yes, and it's exhausting. For me and probably the people I'm constantly reacting to! (Don't get me started on my overly sensitive sensitivity to facial expressions, tone and body language!)

Dancing has certainly encouraged that trend of hypervigilant awareness of space around me. Floorcraft is grounded in understanding the space that may be filled by any theoretical move I make, and how that will interact with any theoretical move the people around me might make - there's a constant calculation and predictive modeling of what other people around me could and might do and how I can clearly signal my intent before moving. This is why the professionals can do those insanely fast enormous Viennese waltzes and not constantly crash into each other. That awareness has been once more amped up by my prior experience plowing into the back of a three car pile up waiting for me to finish it off. Let's just say, I like a lot of space for sudden changes and movements in direction. And running in large groups sometimes doesn't satisfy that.

BUT, I love Andrew Wright and I am so incredibly proud of him for having conquered the beast that was his physiological challenges to making running a thing. And racing is an important experience for him in his athletic adventures. Having a chance to share that with him, was far more exciting than the terror of being stuck in a group of sweaty, panting, runner-types.



Andrew has finally conquered some ankle and knee problems and has worked up to half hour runs. Although I've been not the most helpful of running companions (what with my tendency to get into a pace and take off and then go n the wrong path and leave him totally stranded without a key or a phone and hoping to god I stop running around town looking for him and just come back to the apartment...), I've still been along for the ride with him these last however many months! Since he did this courtesy of the couch to 5 k program, we thought it only appropriate to pick sort of a graduation 5k for us to do together. His 5k of choice was The Bellingham Bay Marathon's "Fun Run." Yes, "fun" ... in other words "we're spending days and hours funding and planning logistics for a 26+ mile run... you guys have fun with your little eighth of a marathon, while we practice the finish line and make sure it works out for the real runners.

The group of fun-runners was impressively diverse: everything from children in costumes, to obviously serious runners warming up the beginning of their training season. Turns out there were over 400 participants with times ranging from over an hour (I'm guessing these were the fun walkers) to 16 minutes! Andrew and I fit somewhere a bit towards the front end of the non-insane runners.

 I had originally intended to drown out the incessant pitter patter of footfalls and deep breathing all around me with music, but the ear buds that came with my phone were decidedly inferior to the running friendly headphones I'd forgotten at work. This meant that as I was tromping up the uphill beginning of the race (watching Andrew take off, because hills feel like cycling up hills and maybe he was going into regular race mode a little bit) trying to catch the dangling and flying ear-bud weapons of doom. Hopefully nobody around me lost an eye... then trying to stuff them into a pocket rather unsuccessfully. It was an interesting five minute beginning to an otherwise pretty mellow race that I really didn't run as a race, because I just don't really do racing I guess. Apparently I ran it around 25 minutes. Since I really had no idea how fast I generally run, it's interesting to know I was generally right at estimating I tend to go about 8 to 8.5 minute miles (or about 7.5 miles in an hour, which used to be a helpful metric for planning time commitments for longer runs, although I intentionally ran slower than that when I was going that long).

Anyways, it was all over before most people wake up and then it was off to...

Baby-Madness Under the Sea!!

 I suspect there's also some element of the introversion thing rearing its head a touch here. I think I dislike party games because parties work best for me when I have a chance to have a series of one on one interactions with people and games rather insistently interfere with my ability to do that. Interacting with a large group all at once tends to make me shut down even when I desperately don't want to. But more pointedly, I appear to be missing a girl-gene... Well, words say it well enough, but photos say it better. Here is an example of what happens when you've got somebody with the girl-gene when they hear the word baby shower:






This would be the genius of Colbie, the thrower of the shower in question. The shower was mermaid themed. That is a baby head fruit bowl, and little baby sharkies in a sea of jello. Trust me, the sheer shower-genius is underrepresented here. The wraps in the first picture were made by Molly, (a/k/a pregnant lady) who also hand-made adorable game sheets and organized her own shower games in conference with Colbie. The girl-gene is strong with these ones. I say that with nothing but admiration, because this is what happens when I go to a shower:



I am also the girl that announced with a real look of excitement that she thinks they've found *the rings* for her wedding bands and they're cobalt stainless steel!! I don't take pride in this (I'm sincerely not striving to be as quirky-cute-clueless as I imagine Zooey Dewhatever seems to be), but it does often set off bafflement on my part when navigating the traditional mores that assume I have an active girl-gene. Or maybe I'm just kind of the sort of person who will always be more comfortable confined to the kiddie table at any event.

Molly is pretty much the subject of my own personal fan club and being in the same room with her makes any event the gala event of the year, so I was happy to be there and foundering through talk about baby related things. Vicarious enjoyment can often entirely vanquish my instinctive terrors and distastes... for instance, how often have I gone to Andrew's bike races? Answer: quite a lot actually. Seeing my loved ones doing what really makes them happy makes me happy too it turns out. It was also pretty awesome keeping in touch with Andrew, who was at a parallel surprise party for Molly's baby-dady/husband, Marcus, who thought he was stuck at home playing video games all day.

Also, maybe not the girl-gene, but the maternal instinct have admittedly started kicking in over the past few years. I'm not sure I credit getting along so well with my nephews based on those instincts so much as my general kiddie-table consignment (oh dastardly "cool aunt" waiting to undermine parental control!), but I do tend to find myself confusing interlocutors by cooing at cute babies in the background and waving like a maniac. And this baby was pretty cute by my estimation:


Also, Andrew and I made our first ever diaper buying excursion, which was sufficiently confusing, but I think I had the different sizing issues sussed out by then pretty well. For Marcus' party, the guys were supposed to each bring some beer and a box of diapers (cute, no?). I threatened to post this on applicable social networking sites without any explanation to see how fast the respective families started stirring:


Andrew uses this same brand of diaper cream to avoid chafing in long races, so you know it's good!

Anyways, away from the odd and back to the usual - work work work for two days before a fabulous spree of travelling and surgeries. I'm sure you can tell just how much my head is going to be in the game today!

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