Halloween is coming up, and I have to say I’ve always hated the holiday. I guess I never understood the point as a child when my mom used to make my sister and myself costumes (I still don’t know how she did it). Even as a huge yellow bumblebee equipped with black pipe cleaners as antennae, I didn’t get why we had to walk all over the place in the dark and knock on stranger’s doors (after always being told not to) for things my parents never usually got us on their own. And that’s not even taking into account the time my parents spent checking what we acquired for razors and drugs once we emptied our orange plastic pumpkins onto the kitchen table, awaiting the opportunity to ruin our carefully cared for teeth.
Now as the halls of my Elementary school have long since faded from memory, people are still dressing up for this holiday that I still don’t understand. I guess now it’s more like, "who can dress up as a character and make it look the sexiest." Sexy nurse, sexy doctor, sexy cowboy, sexy maid, sexy bumblebee…wait. These aren’t even scary costumes. Not that my famously huge bumblebee was all that scary. But I think seeing 6-year-old-me running towards you, one blur of yellow and black stuffed with tissue paper after 10 chocolate bars, you might feel a small amount of fear kick in. Or, if you’re like Kinsey, who has a vivid childhood memory of swallowing a bumblebee by accident, the image could throw you into an epileptic seizure.
I digress. Halloween, for adults, is the chance to let your inner freak side show without anyone having to think twice about it. You get away with, for one night, being your weird self without having to hide it behind the usual boundaries that societal etiquette has placed against your wanting to dress up like sexy health care professional. Candy is replaced with alcoholic beverages and while strangers and drugs are still typically involved, I still can't help but feel, in the end, that Halloween, like Trix, is for kids.
So, best-costume-contests aside, this year I’ll be going as myself, which, I know, can be pretty scary in its own right. However after the glory of my elementary school costume days, I’d just as soon leave on a high note anyway.
When I said I’d take a few days off from running, I meant a few days. But this is getting ridiculous. The rain that has come down in a steady hum for the past 10 days is supposed to end this week. As per usual I’m assuming the weatherman, ahem, weatherperson, is correct (read: I will be bringing my umbrella to work tomorrow).
At work on Friday night, (job one of two) a drunk man on his way out asked me while putting on his coat (it was still raining, naturally) "are you working?" I blinked, thinking the answer was quite obvious. I decided to humor him by simply saying "I’m working on figuring out my future." He thought about that seriously for a moment and then asked, "how did you get to be so pretty?" I blinked again and told him I didn’t know that I was, to which he shook his head and responded, "shame."
I showed him and his wife to the front door and told them I hoped they’d come again.
Working at a restaurant is interesting. People are there for all sorts of reasons. Business dinners, catching up with old friends, birthday celebrations, the chance to be at the hot-new-place in order for people to see you eating at the hot-new-place spending an obscene amount of money on pasta, wine and chocolate mousse. Mostly they’re dates. Couples sitting together with the small candle illuminating their menus and faces and as I watch them I smile and can’t remember the last time I was in their seat. Amidst the overwhelming smell of cheap cologne and expensive perfume I can tell when another woman has fallen in love. She excuses herself from the table, leaving her steamed artichoke exposed near the heart, the discarded leaves with teeth indentations still sitting just off to the side, neatly stacked.
With the onset of the cold weather I’m wanting more and more to replace coffee with vodka.
It’s great weather we’ve been having. So much so that last week felt like Summer, the humidity frying my hair on the walk to work while inwardly all I wanted to do was start wearing my large collection of sweaters.
However yesterday, timing being perfect as always, I stood in the pouring rain, Nike shorts on sporting my goose-bumped legs, Asics being soaked though to the socks, white T-shirt revealing the black sports bra underneath, as I awaited the start of the Tufts Health Plan Benefit 10k race for Women. Boston Common was packed with the 6,000 people who raced, and I stood alone, trying to find my way under one of the few tents to try to keep dry and stop my muscles from freezing up.
It was in vain. So I tacked on my race number and went up onto Beacon street. I was standing, hopping, jogging in place while the rain let up a little as I tried not to think about the fact that I was freezing and that my bladder was full. Looking around me everyone seemingly had iPods attached to their bodies in some form or another, even though the race rules specifically said no iPods. Foolish me, I followed the rules despite the fact that I’m not used to running without music. I figured the race day anxiety and energy bar I had in the morning would be enough push me through the monotony without my usual playlist of U2 and The Killers. So there I was, all alone, wet, cold and sans the great motivational music I’m used to, streaming into my ears from my glorious white earphones.
The race started and the rain never stopped. The roads were packed as I tried to weave around the walls of the 10 minute milers to get as close to the front as I could. There were puddles everywhere and my sneakers are now ruined because of them. I needed new ones anyway.
By the time I hit the Harvard Bridge on the way back I was in a groove and making good time, passing people left and right, feeling I was running one of my best mile times ever. In my head I was playing my own music (while I gave angry glances to the rule breakers), Take Five being the predominant song my brain decided to put on loop. Then I hit Comm Ave. I have to admit it’s much longer than it looks, especially after you’ve been running for almost fifty minutes. I broke into a sprint too soon, and as I rounded the end by the Garden I saw Kinsey (who was up from DC) and AG waving from the corner cheering me on. I pushed through and made it around the end, only to nearly lose it in the last 30 yards. My legs suddenly felt like jello, or maybe even pudding as perhaps a combination of the rain and the cold finally took their toll on my muscles.
I crossed the finish in 55:20 having run an 8:55 minute mile.
I grabbed as many free water bottles, luna bars and bananas as I could, made it back to the office, showered (my office has showers) and went back to work. It was all I could do to stop myself from putting my head down on my desk and falling asleep. If the guy in the cube next to me hadn’t been at work yesterday, I probably would have. Kinsey, AG and myself went to the 21st after work for burgers and pints to celebrate my race time. I made it home in time to fall asleep halfway through the 7th inning of the Yankees game. Looks like I don't have any more baseball to watch this year. Diva Girl and Sweet Girl will be happy as I've been yelling at the TV a lot lately.
In other news it’s raining here today and it’s supposed to rain all week. I think I’ll take a break from running…for a little while anyway.
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