The Amazing Race

The last time I ran in downtown New York I was trying to avoid falling glass and concrete. Tripping over dropped purses and briefcases, my gait was anything but smooth.  My breath erratic, harsh, and shallow.  Believe it or not, I’d forgotten about all of that until this past Tuesday when Marian the Librarian and I got off the subway and headed to the starting line at the World Financial Center for the American Heart Association 5K.  My constant stream of chatter was due as much to a case of pre-race nerves as to the jarring influx of memories.  With all the mental jump cuts, it was almost like watching MTV back when they actually showed music videos.  While passing new stores, restaurants, apartment buildings and bars, my mind was working like a flip book; scanning back and forth trying to remember what used to be there.  My hands started to shake a bit and I wondered what would happen if the starting gun went off and I just started running, and running, and running somehow ending up in Central Park like I did almost six years ago.  I knew what would happen: Marian the Librarian would never run another race with me again.

Once I got over the initial not-quite déjà vu, the newness of the downtown area was actually stimulating.  “Fuck you, terrorists!  We’re still here.  I’m still here and I’m about to run a race.” And then Marian the Librarian said something about going to a bar after the race for mozzarella sticks and beer and my walk down patriot lane was over.  I get all fired up about messin’ with the US but I’d sell national secrets for a plate of mozzarella sticks and an ice cold Smithwicks.

I had a lot of questions for Marian the Librarian:  Will the route be clearly marked?  What happens if I lose my racing number?  Will Meredith get back together with McDreamy and is Callie really a lesbian?  While she answered all my queries patiently I could tell she was reconsidering her promise to not leave me behind and run at her own pace.  We got to the starting line, well, we got near the starting line.  There were thousands of people packed into an area the size of my bathroom.  While I am used to maneuvering around Mr. Dingo for sink space in the mornings and doing some fancy footwork to avoid stepping on Not a Dingo and Dingo Girl as they work their furry wiles to prevent our heading off to work, I was not used to the organized chaos at the starting area.  The starting line looked less like a civilized group of racers and more like a cattle call for the new Fox reality series, So You Think You Can Run?

We stood in place for at least thirty seconds after the starting gun went off.  The bottleneck gradually eased and we were finally able to run.  I was running!  I was running in my first race!  See Dingo run!  Run, Dingo, Run!  I used my Nike+ Sportband (best running gadget EVAH!) to check my starting pace.  Marian the Librarian assured me that while it seemed as if everyone was passing us by and the wheelchair and crutches contingent would soon be nipping at our heels, it was best to pace ourselves.  Most of those zooming ahead and elbowing us out of the way would soon be gasping for breath. I believed her but I still had to resist the urge to accidentally blind them with my long flowing locks nudge them back.  The whole talking while running thing?  Not a problem.  Marian the Librarian and I chatted and before I knew it a mile had passed by.  I kept checking my pace.  Wow!  I was doing great!  I was clipping along at a pace much faster than anything in my training runs.  I mentioned this to Marian the Librarian and we both attributed the faster time to the lack of hills in the race course.  Do not be fooled, folks.  Central Park has its own mountain range.  Yes, it does!  It has to, otherwise how can I run uphill both ways on both the east and west side of the park?  Somehow I never seem to be running downhill.  Just up, and up, and up.  As I’ve bitched before, I haven’t lost much weight but my calves, lord!, my calves have gained about thirty pounds of muscle.  It was a bit cool today so I thought I’d give my kick-ass and takin’ names boots one last hurrah before summer.  No dice.  I couldn’t zip them over my King Kong sized calves. So, sexy boots are out, but if you need someone to climb a building, I’m your gal.  Anywaaaaaay....

No sooner had we said, “No hills!” than the course began a gradual incline.  Are you freakin’ kidding me?  Hills in lower Manhattan?  But you know what?  I flew over those hills.  And you know what else?  We started passing some of the smart asses who had bolted out of the starting area.  I resisted the urge to turn around as I passed them and taunt, “In your face! In your face!” This nod to decorum was not because of any humility on my part but simple recognition of my limits.  I lack grace and coordination.  I am fortunate enough to be able to run in a straight line.  To run backwards, even with the incentive to serve some humble pie, would surely result in having a pie thrown in my own face.  So, I plodded on. 

It was fantastic to see the city from the street and note all the reconstruction that had taken place.  There were parks and gardens.  Stores and vendors.  Even Ground Zero had finally lost its death pall and taken on a new vivacity.  As we ran through the streets people cheered for us.  It was an incredible feeling. 

Marian the Librarian kept checking in with me to make sure I wasn’t pushing myself too hard and to discuss our options post-race.  We’d passed a bunch of bars but there were also some shoe stores that looked inviting and Century 21 (a massive designer discount store) was still open.  You know, it’s one thing to run a race, it’s another talent altogether to scope out store hours while dodging potholes and sewage grates.

As we rounded the corner to the finish line I could hear loud clapping and cheering.  As we got closer we discovered it was a group of children, probably between 7 and 9 years old, who were cheering on the runners and giving high fives.  Chalk it up to being tired or overly emotional at nearly accomplishing my goal, but I found it incredibly moving.  I nearly knocked Marian the Librarian over in order to reach the kids before we passed them.  Hey, I wanted my high five! 

And then, it was done.  I crossed the finished line.  I wanted to cry.  I felt great!  I felt light.  I felt happy.  I felt hungry.  It was time for food and celebratory beer.  Marian the Librarian is the perfect race companion.  She cheered for me and encouraged me all the way.  Although we’ll see what I have to say about her in a few weeks; at her urging I signed up for a 10K. 

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Vampires, and Zombies, and Werewolves!  Oh My!

Last night Mr. Dingo and I watched 30 Days of Night.  I loved it.  I’m not really into the whole vampire thing, but these vampires scared the living crap outta me.  Stephen King Salem’s Lot and Bram Stoker‘s Dracula bored me.  Yawn.  Snooze.  The 30 Days of Night vampires?  Oh my holy hell, I had a kung fu death grip on Mr. Dingo throughout the entire movie.  People often ask me if I get nightmares from watching horror movies and reading horror fiction.  Actually, I don’t.  I scare myself enough in broad daylight.  No nightmares necessary. 

Mr. Dingo likes to remind me of the early morning hours about two years ago when he got a 4:30 am call from me.  I was wrapping up a week-long visit at my Mom’s house.  Mom had already left for her shift at the hospital when I got up to pack for my flight back to NYC.  My old bedroom had already been converted into Mom’s sewing room so I was sleeping downstairs in what we call the dungeon.  A dark, windowless room right next to the boiler room.  Yes, the Princess had been demoted.  Anyway, it had been years since I was alone in this house and the night/pre-dawn noises were eerie.  Every little noise made me jump and I just wanted to get the hell out.  Although the news lately had been filled with the unexplained surge in home invasions, I was not fearful of the living.  No, I was sure that the noises I was hearing were being made by… zombies.  Yes, zombies.  My rational mind knew that there was no such thing as zombies and that I was going to finish packing my bags and be back in New York in time to complain about rush hour traffic. My irrational mind, my sleep-deprived 4:30-in-the-morning mind, was having none of that.  So I did what any sane woman would do.  I called my boyfriend. 

Mr. Dingo answered the phone understandably alarmed at receiving a call so early.  Something had to be wrong, right?  Right.  I was about to be devoured by brainless, soulless creatures.  I swear, I was!  I could hear their footsteps on the stairs! 

Mr. Dingo:  Are you okay?

Dingo:  No.

Mr. Dingo:  What’s wrong?

Dingo:  Zombies.

Mr. Dingo:  What?  It sounded like you said “zombies.”

Dingo:  I did.  I think zombies might be trying to get into the house.  Did you hear that?  Oh my God, and I smell something funny, too.  Smells like… zombies.  Will you stay on the phone with me until I leave for the airport?  I’m almost ready.

And he did.  And the zombies did not get me.  We He likes to laugh about that every now and then.  In fact, we he laughed about it last night as we were watching 30 Days of Night.  The vampires were only scary on the screen.  Besides, I had nothing to fear from these vampires.  The mosquitoes have already sucked all the blood from my body.  In fact, I am an empty, bumpy shell just rattling around the apartment.

Anyway, as I was showering this morning I heard the door to the bathroom open.  Mr. Dingo had already left for work and Dingo Girl, well, she hears water running and she’s hiding under the bed.  Occasionally she’ll come into the bathroom when I’m in there but that’s usually only when I’ve snuck in there to eat a Snickers bar in peace.  My God, can’t a woman eat a freakin’ Snickers bar without having to share?  Does it matter that she bought it for Mr. Dingo and left it on his desk?  I say, if the Snickers bar goes uneaten for 15 minutes a day after I place it on his desk for him, he forfeits all rights to said candy bar.  I’m sure there’s a law about that somewhere.  And after all I’ve done for Dingo Girl, you’d think she’d have my back.  But nooooo, the bitch (because she really is one) wants the Snickers for herself, even though I’m the one who went through all the trouble and made up the law.  But I digress…

When I heard the door open, I knew it didn’t sound like Dingo Girl but I called to her anyway.  You know, using that stock horror movie voice that rises with uncertainty at the end of the sentence?  The voice that lets the audience know that the lone girl in the shower is very well aware that the intruder in the bathroom is not the Snickers seeking faithless faithful family dog but a VAMPIRE!!  Yes, when Dingo Girl did not answer — not even in Dingo-speak — and when I saw a large, dark shadow fall upon the shower curtain, I just knew I was about to be devoured.  My mind raced to all the things I had at my disposal to defend myself from the Undead. 

Shaving cream?  The fact that I use Kiss My Face shaving cream was reason enough to reject this notion.  No, stay away from my face, you harbinger of the apocalypse.  Besides, I don’t shave my face with this shaving cream.  It should be called, “Kiss My Legs.” Anyway, it did not seem like a good weapon against the undead if they were well-groomed.

Razor?  I’m a klutz.  My razor has a safety blade.  Unless he’s afraid of a close shave without all the nicks and gouges of a regular razor, I was outta luck.

Shampoo?  Conditioner?  My God, what was I going to do?!?  Can you moisturize a vampire away?  You know, dead, flaky skin and whatnot?

Realize please, that these thoughts took place in a matter of seconds.  Not enough time for Rational Dingo to kick in.  But just enough time for Mr. Dingo to throw back the shower curtain with a vampire roar.  And then laugh at my deer-in-the-headlights look.  And then slink away at my you-are-so-dead-look.  As soon as I could move and speak I gave him a piece of my mind.  He was all wide eyed innocence as he explained that he was not feeling well on the train so he came home.  Although we’ve done our best to eschew traditional gender roles, I’ve instituted a new law.  It’s on the books right under the Snickers Rule.  Whenever he comes in the door he must announce, “Honey, I’m home!” And bring me a Snickers.

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Mullet Over

So I took my punkin’ headed self back to the salon today to see what could be done with the disaster that had been wrought upon me.  When the owner of the salon came to greet me in the lobby, her eyes got all wide and she said, “Oh Lord, someone here did that to you?” An offer for free services was not forthcoming (I tried, Brookem! I really did!).  No, she wanted to try to fix it.  I had lots of things to say about that but because I was raised a good Southern girl, I remembered my Mama’s advice:  If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all where they can hear you.  So, while I wanted to tell the salon owner what I thought about the suggestion, I didn’t.  And because I’m a wuss, I sat down in the chair, closed my eyes, and envisioned buying lots and lots of pretty sparkling earrings.  (Thanks for the suggestion, Ree!). 

When I told her what I had asked the hair stylist to do, she said the only way to get that look now is to cut more.  I put the kibosh on that.  If she cut any more I would have to resort to that spray on hair that you see advertised at 3am.  Then she said that she could fix things up a little bit without taking off more length.  I know, I know, looking back on it now it doesn’t make sense that one second she’s saying that it needs to be cut and the next she’s saying that she can fix it without cutting it, right?  But I have little ears, remember?  I thought maybe I heard her wrong.

So several snip, snip, snips later and I am the proud owner of a retro look.  You may remember a little hairdo call the mullet?  Oh yeah, I’m bringing mullets back.  In fact, I’m sure it’s going to be the latest craze.  Because I am da shit.  Yes, I am. 

Also, ear reduction surgery is going to be all the rage.  You wait and see.

The only other bit of news I have is that I am running in a 5K on Tuesday.  It’s my first race and I’m nervous.  My friend, Marian the Librarian, is going to run with me. She runs several races over the course of the summer and while we both like to do our daily runs on our own, it will be nice to do races with someone else.  I will be able to put into practice all the training advice I’ve been reading and getting from friends and family like, “you should run at a pace that allows you to carry on a conversation.” As I’ve told you, I can sing and run but talking and running?  I’m afraid the only things Marian the Librarian will hear me say are “Water! Waaaatttteeeerrrr!” and “Port-o-potty!  Poooorrrttt-oooo—pooottyyy!”

But I will be rockin’ the mullet and making all the other racers wish that they had hair like mine.

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I’m Sm’all Ears

I have small ears.  Tiny ears.  Bat-sized ears.  No, fish size ears.  Have you ever seen a fish’s ears?  No, because they’re too small.  That’s how small my ears are.  In college, after a night of drunken revelry, my inebriated friends used to like to take out a ruler and measure my ears.  Boy howdy, what passed for fun in my Texas college town would fill a book, or at least a small Post-it note.  So here I am, many, many years later with my tiny ears.  To tell you the truth, until now these ears o’ mine have never been a problem.  However, lately, I’ve been cursing these tiny flaps of cartilage attached to the side of my head.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could exchange facial features like Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head?  Sometimes, just for kicks, I would put my eyes in the back of my head.

The problem I’ve encountered in the past few weeks is finding headphones that fit.  I’ve tried every size of earbuds imaginable but they always fall out of my tiny ears.  Well, they don’t actually fit inside my ears so I have to sort of wedge them along the outer ridges.  But I spend an unreasonable amount of time pushing my earphones back in while I’m running.  I am sure that people I pass think, “Why does she keep hitting herself in the side of her head like that?” No, you dumbasses, I am not a high-functioning autistic, I am just trying to keep my earphones from falling out of my eraser-sized ears.  On the other hand, I’ve also collected a lot of change from tourists who think I’m a street performer doing the Macarena.  That knowledge will come in handy when I’m in Europe and I’ve run out of coins for the public restrooms.  Anyway, I’ve looked for smaller ear buds but can’t find the right fit.  Probably because if I get them any smaller than the ones I have now, they’ll be the size of Tic-Tacs. 

Apparently my ears are so small that the woman who cut my hair this weekend decided that my ears should be liberated from the prison of my unruly locks.  For some reason the woman insisted on blow-drying my hair, although I never wear it straight, and then cutting it.  She said something about being able to see the lines and angles or whatever.  Um, I have curly hair.  No lines, no angles, just curls, waves, corkscrews, and general mayhem.  I should’ve stabbed her with her scissors and made a break for the door, but I didn’t.  I’m only big, bad, and confrontational in my head.  My big ol’ punkin head.  Yes, I have a big head.  Tiny ears.  Big head.  Sounds like a Discovery Health documentary, doesn’t it?  Something that’s aired right after the touching family saga about the midgets little people people shorter than everyone else.

Anyway, I told Sweeny Todd that if she insisted on cutting my hair while it was straight to remember that my hair shrinks up A LOT when it’s curly and dry.  She didn’t listen.  And so now everyone can see my tiny ears.  Oh, and the hair cut?  Yeah, it accentuates my ginormous punkin’ head.  It sticks out from my head like a nimbus, or rather, a giant dandelion puff.  I wish I could borrow Mr. Potato Head’s hat.  Hey, if the hat can fit Mr. Potato Head, it should be able to fit Ms. Dingo Punkin’ Head, right?  I bitched and moaned all day yesterday.  Mr. Dingo said that it wasn’t that bad but the sideways glances he kept taking at my noggin had me convinced that he was either looking at my tiny ears or trying to gauge how long it would take my hair to grow back so that he could be seen with me in public.  He kept saying that it wasn’t that bad but when I went to take Dingo Girl for her walk he urged me to wear my hat. 

So, I called the salon and bitched, bitched, bitched.  I’m supposed to go see the owner who will try to fix what can be fixed and maybe offer some consolation for the loss of almost four inches of hair — free coloring or deep conditioning would lessen the pain.  But you know what?  Life can be a sneaky bitch.  I washed my hair this morning and didn’t look at it again until later in the evening when I was on my way to meet a friend for drinks after class.  I was trying to decide whether to go with the baseball cap or the Jackie O type scarf when I looked in the mirror.  And holy hell y’all, my hair looked kinda cute.  Tiny ears n’ all. 

So what am I supposed to do?  I mean, my hair does not look like I expected or wanted it to, and yes, it does need to be evened out where Edward Scissorhands decided to use the back of my head as her fantasy playground, but it doesn’t look as bad as I made it out to be when I called them yesterday.  If I get out of the shower tomorrow morning and my hair looks even better than it did today, do not think that I am above saving face by having Mr. Dingo take a kitchen knife to my ‘do.  Oh yes, I’ll go there.

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West Nile is not a Vacation Destination

I haven’t been sleeping well lately.  Yes, my To Do list is longer than this election process feels and I am under no delusion that I will complete everything before we somehow manage to eliminate our national debt. In other words, I’m screwed.  Mr. Dingo is always telling me that I take on too much.  To prove his point he sent me an email that listed all the things I said I was going to accomplish that day, all the things I wished I could accomplish that day, and then, for kicks, because he’s silly like that, he added on a few things that no one in their right mind would think was doable in the amount of time that I have.  I, never claiming to be in my right mind, added them to my To Do list.  Yes, it is possible to learn Italian before I go to Florence, to train Dingo Girl so that we can win the Obedience Competition this Fall, and to find Osama Bin Laden before summer break begins.  I. CAN. DO. IT. ALL!!! 

I feel as if I am in a constant state of motion.  I can’t slow down or I’ll fall behind.  I don’t even know who or what this thing is I’m afraid of falling behind.  Whatever it is, though, all I know is that I don’t want to get behind it.  Maybe it poops a lot. Or drives down the highway with its left turn signal on.

The other night I woke up from a nightmare in which I dreamt that my English Literature Subject Matter test was in November and not only had I not started studying for it but I hadn’t even begun working on my applications to Ph.D. programs.  And then as the blood started pooling on the bed as I frantically pinched my arm harder and harder to wake up from the nightmare, I realized it was not a nightmare. 

For those of you who don’t know about the English Subject Matter test, it’s a test that you have to take to get into most English Ph.D. programs.  It doesn’t test you on the things that you’ve learned in undergrad or grad school.  Oh, no, that would be too easy.  Instead, it tests you on arcane literary devices and novels, essays, and quotes that no one who wasn’t alive to smoke opium with Poe would ever know.  Things added to my To Do list this past week: read every single Norton Anthology; write a personal statement for my Ph.D. applications worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, memorize and/or tattoo onto my inner thigh esoteric poetic devices; break into a big blubbering puddle of tears; eat Entemann’s.  I’m pretty sure I can accomplish the last two without much effort.

If my To Do list was all I had to do, I could do it.  I would be a raving, foaming at the mouth, hopped up on amphetamines unwashed, disheveled bitch, but I could do it.  I would not be happy, Mr. Dingo would not be happy, Dingo Girl would put herself up for adoption, and Not a Dingo would go on as usual, sleeping on my keyboard and only waking occasionally so that I could drop a treat into her mouth.  I. CAN. DO. IT. ALL!!!  But I can’t do any of it without sleep and I haven’t been getting much of that. 

No, it’s not these worries keeping me up at night, Valium Xanax meditation helps me with that.  It’s the damned mosquitoes.  Yes, you read that right, mosquitoes.  I am a magnet for bloodsuckers. 

As I sat down to write this, I counted 31 mosquito bites on my body.  No, I am not exaggerating.  No doubt by the time I hit Submit, there will be more.  The itching and scratching keep me awake at night and no amount of hydrocortisone or calamine lotion helps. 

During the day the itching is bad but I can sometimes forget about it in the frenzy and activity of my life.  At night, when the world is silent except for the mosquitoes buzzing above my bed like a cult of Satanists ready to drive their knives into my veins to bask in my blood, it’s all I can do not to climb out of my own skin.  It’s not just summer, although that’s when the fuckers are at their worst, but year round.  Mr. Dingo thinks that it’s somehow a point of pride that I am the only person in New York City who can be bitten by a mosquito in December.  By the way, Mr. Dingo never gets bitten.  Ever.  Mosquitoes find him thoroughly unappetizing.  He is the rice cake of the mosquito world.  Sometimes I wonder whether he is one of them.

The mosquitoes can’t just bite me and be done with it.  Oh no.  As it happens, I am allergic to mosquito bites.  Whereas most people get bitten and have a small red bump to show for the experience, I swell up like a bloated corpse.  By the end of the summer, I will be covered with enough mosquito bites that people will think I am in a Tyler Perry movie.  And because I can’t stop scratching, I have a scab or two.  And then, because my skin hates me, I don’t heal well so I have scars that will not fade until the next appearance of Halley’s Comet.  Am I creating a lovely visual image for you?  Aren’t you just picturing a misshapen mass of a woman with enormous bags under her eyes from lack of sleep plugging away at her keyboard stopping occasionally to pick her scabs and shoo away a swarming mass of nature’s vampires between bites of Entemann’s?

Mr. Dingo and I have done everything short of having me bathe in Off.  I am hesitant to wear a chemical barrier to mosquitoes 24/7 because that can’t be good for your skin and it smells.  But I’m running short on options and on unbitten skin.  Then, this morning, in an answer to our burnt offerings (my last two turns at the stove ended short of calling the fire department but that’s a story for another post), I received an email from a friend about how to get rid of mosquitoes.  This is the text of the email:

The best way of getting rid of mosquitoes is Listerine, the original medicinal type. The Dollar Store-type works, too. I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children’s swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don’t leave home without it.....Pass it on.  Also can be used to dab any bites you receive. It will stop the itching quicker and go away faster.

Really?  Listerine?  As it so happens, we have Listerine on hand.  Is the orange-flavored kind okay?  I’m not sure exactly where we should spray it.  We have already saturated the areas around our doors and windows with Raid, Off, and any other chemical repellant that, in two years, will be found to cause irreversible brain damage.  But I am open for anything at this point and have spent the day dabbing at my skin with the mouthwash.  Should I make a body spray out of it and douse myself with the mediciney smelling concoction?  I didn’t wear Off because I didn’t want to smell like a chemical factory, but will wearing Eau de Listerine make me smell like an alcoholic trying to hide her addiction?  Because really folks, if I can’t find some relief and get some sleep, I’m going to have to bring my buddies Jim and Jack out of retirement just to get some shut eye.  And then I would have to add another task to my To Do list: Rehab.

Update:  Several bottles of Listerine later and I have discovered that the email I received about repelling mosquitoes with Listerine is all a hoax!  Snopes.com, that faithful debunker of urban legends, has dashed my only hope of emerging from the summer months without looking like a life-size Connect the Dots.  They don’t say who started this rumor but I’m eyeing Pfizer.  Mouthwash sales down?  Start a rumor that has people filling their swimming pools with your product.  I smell a conspiracy.  And Listerine.

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