Deviant Dispatches

This is from my last semester of college at Ripon, when I was training for a half marathon through a psych class called "Topics in Motivation." I will admit, I am very prone to bouts of stupidity. Often, I accidentally do the wrong homework assignment, interpret clear things incorrectly, and say ridiculous things. But this time, I went too far. Literally. I went too far. Today was supposed to be my first five-mile run in training for the half-marathon. Considering that last week's four-mile run ended up being not quite four miles, I was a bit apprehensive, but excited to break another of my running records. So I measured the mileage with my car last night, in the dark. I decided to run my usual two-mile loop and then go on a nice three-mile excursion, just outside of Ripon. Mind you, I've never seen this intersection in the daylight. There's a delightfully intimidating hill before this intersection as well. Intelligent as I am at times, I decided to run my new r...

When I was little, we moved a lot within the same city. By the time I was six, we'd lived in six different places. But we finally settled in an awesome little house, where we stayed until my mom recently remarried. This awesome little house was awesome for several reasons. Even though my room was always freezing in the winter, I thought it was the absolute best to have a crawlspace under my room. When I was first allowed to explore them, I found graffiti all over the walls from previous owners, and I was allowed to add my own name to the denizens of the past. I was eight and allowed to write on the walls. Awesome points. We built our own swingset and slide out back not long after moving in. But that wasn't what made the backyard awesome. It helped, sure, but the nature already in place was what rocked the backyard. First, there was the tree. An enormous old "helicopter tree," as we called it, because of the little whirligigs that stuffed our gutters and sprouted mi...

Just because I felt like posting the German today. This is Sunday's sunset.

This weekend, I was finally able to start belly dancing again. Last summer, I had a painful pinched nerve that led to stomach pains as well, resulting in my not really being able to exercise much because of the agony it induced. Yes, I've pretty much been hurting every day since last summer. I've finally started seeing a chiropractor who's able to help me not hurt so much - yay for that. Boo for this town having really stupid doctors who didn't "get" what was hurting me. Anyway, so this Saturday I danced for almost a half hour, and the only thing that hurt after was my left leg. But that's an old injury, from the time I accidentally ran to another town. Don't worry, if you haven't heard that story, I'll post it here sometime soon. Getting to dance again without pain made me way excited, as did paying my monthly bills and having one less student loan to pay. So I figured I could allot myself the amount I usually pay for that loan, and use it tow...

So, I haven't really written about our wedding here at all. But thanks to the lovely post on Offbeat Bride (written by yours truly), I don't really need to. Sure, there are lots of other awesome moments that happened during the day, but right now, they're not coming to mind. Our flickr page features photos taken by our professional photographer, Mary . But it doesn't show the disposable camera pictures - many of which are awesome in their own right. And it's Friday. I deserve to slack off a little, I think. Besides, you don't really feel like reading right now, do you? Bring on the pictures! Spousal Unit and his dad I didn't know candles were such a delicacy till I saw this picture. "We shall rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land."

Last night, Spousal Unit and I went to a wonderful concert. He'd had his eye on Slide , the band, for a couple of weeks, and wanted so much to see them that we actually wrote it on the calendar. (Usually, the only things on there are birthdays and Spousal Unit's thesis achievement stars - bronze through gold.) They were well worth the wait. The five guys are from various parts of Ireland, and they are incredibly talented, playing at least ten instruments between them during the show, including several flutes, a concertina, and lots of stringed stuff. At first, Spousal Unit and I didn't see any percussion - not until someone started playing the bodhrán, an Irish hand-held drum. They didn't play it for every song, and didn't need to; other instruments kept the beat quite well, along with the audience's clapping. About 20 minutes into the show, they asked us each to make our "special noise" for them - "You know, everyone's got that one noise they...

Several years ago, I read Connie Willis' The Doomsday Book. It was magically delicious. The Doomsday Book reads much more like a historical novel (with a dash of time travel) than anything else. It's the most realistic time travel book I've ever read - authors will often ignore the difficulties and unrealistic aspects of time travel because they just need to use it in their book, and readers happily suspend disbelief for 300 pages to enjoy the good stuff. Willis actually went to the trouble of explaining time travel - to some degree - in that book. Many precautions are taken to make sure no one sees travelers arrive and no one's life is radically altered by the his/her stay (because changing the past is detrimental to our present well-being, duh). [insert in your mind the picture of The Doomsday Book that blogger wouldn't let me upload] Many, many years after that delightful book won Willis the Hugo and the Nebula (scifi's two biggest awards), she's got ...