I won't say I'm in love*

Last night was the Ben Folds concert. I LOVE Ben Folds. I don't know if you know that, I don't know if I have been that clear, but I LOVE HIM! With all this love for his music though, I have never seen him live. I had the opportunity a few years ago, but the concert was on a Sunday and I don't do concerts on a Sunday, I don't care who you are (obviously - cause I didn't go see Ben Folds). Special thanks to my friend Ben though, if he hadn't told me that Ben Folds was coming, I would have missed the boat. So - of course, Ben came with me. We made a night of it, dinner at Red Robin (where they had that creepy, blue eyed bird staring me down most of the time) and then off to the concert. Ben even tied my shoe for me. What are friends for right? Now - to the concert! First off, I left my ID in the car, not a problem because I don't drink. So I got my fist ready for "The Black X" (I feel that makes it sound more official). The guy marks my hands and I say something about how that will be nice at work the next day and he says, "Oh a little Purell will take it right off." Then he pauses a little like he knows he shouldn't have said that. Ben and I joked that it would have been great if I pulled out a mini bottle from my pocket and been like, "Oh, like this!" and run for it. Again, wouldn't have mattered, I wasn't going to drink. In the lobby there was a bunch of paper and a sign saying that you should write your request on a piece of paper and make it into a paper airplane. Then everyone had to hold on to it until the announcer told them to throw them on to the stage. The above picture is very blurry (I was still finding the best setting for my camera) is from when people were throwing their airplanes up. That blurry figure in the middle is Ben Folds...I love him. First song was "Luckiest", which is my FAVORITE so right off the bat I was one happy camper and very excited to be there.

There's something about hilarious nerdy guys who sing and play the piano that I just love.

This is a video (sorry if it's blurry, shaky, etc. people were bumping in to me and all) of Ben doing "Luckiest" in a lounge singer kind of way. Love it.

Due to unforeseen circumstance however, I had to leave the concert early. I was NOT HAPPY about this, but Ben (not Folds) proved to be an excellent best friend and really came through for me. I will not get into the particulars of the situation because I am still a little angry about it, but I do want to say that I am grateful for my friend who seemed to do all the right things to make my mood better and who kept a level head when all I wanted to do was cry and yell like a big baby.

And I am grateful that Ben (Folds) played Luckiest first - otherwise I would have been really angry *insert smiley face here*. So - if anyone hears of him coming back to Richmond - I only realized a partial dream last night and would gladly go again. Cause I don't know if you know this, but I love him...

You're wiping away brain cells and there aren't many to spare.*

This weekend I had the opportunity to go Contra dancing. I was incredibly nervous! I don't do dancing. My "free style" usually goes unnoticed (as Rub can attest to, I was at a Halloween party doing the Breakfast Club shake down - you know, when Ally Sheedy looks like she's falling to the ground having a seizure almost - and NO ONE but Rub even noticed me dancing, I was the only person in the room dancing) and any form of formalized dancing usually gets laughed at.

I hate games like dance-dance because people make fun of the way I do it because I'm so focused on getting the steps and I have absolutely no rhythm. So... me=nervous.

We get there and my date (who has never heard of Contra dancing either) introduces me to the host and the band. That's how he knew about it, the host and the keyboard player are his landlords and the violin player is his roommate. So the host takes me aside and starts to show me the basic moves...oh, for those of you who are just like me and don't know anything about Contra dancing, it's partnered folk dancing. That's the best I can describe it.

So I learn the names and the moves and forget everything by the time the music starts. But I was told that if I just keep smiling, people will take care of me. So, I whipped out that smile and kept it plastered to my face until we left two and half hours later. I started the first dance with the host and my date with someone else, they told us it was actually best not to dance together since neither of us knew what we were doing. We did try one or two dances together...but they were right, two newbies should avoid each other!

At the beginning of each dance I was completely lost, no clue what was happening. The move I got down the quickest was The Spin, I should say that I learned it's name the quickest because I'm pretty sure I have lots of work to do on it! The easiest rule to remember is that the woman is always right...or always on the right. You begin each dance at one point in the line and you dance in sets of four, for most dances you and your partner start off with another couple and you do a few moves and then you and your partner move down one way, the other couple go the other way, and the whole line ends up dancing with each other. By the time I got to the end of the line I had the dance down and was really enjoying myself (mostly because I wasn't messing up the line by doing the wrong move) then, you'd sit out one "round" and jump back in, but now you're going backwards! So it would throw me off!

In one of the dances the girl has what they call "A shadow" and it's the guy that is to your right that will always be there, so you have your partner who you always return to and your shadow who is always there, and some random guy that changes out each time you move down the line (like all the other dances). My shadow was probably my favorite person in the room! It was a quick paced dance but he didn't seem to be moving fast. I don't know how to explain it, he was keeping up, not struggling at all, but it was like things slowed down when it was time to dance with my shadow, which helped calm my nerves, which is probably why I thought he was so great, that, and he would slowly lift his hand this way or that and kind of direct me to the right or the left if he noticed I had forgotten something.

At one point, the host (sorry, I forgot his name) noticed that Corey and I were dancing together (the newbies!) and started to head over and someone stopped him and said, "Don't worry, the kids are alright." ...yeah, we were pretty much the youngest people there too. But people kept telling him (the host) that we were doing well, we were picking up quickly on the moves and everything.

People told me that too, they said I was doing great and they were just super nice (except this one guy in a kilt, didn't like him too much, but whatever). Of course, the thing I heard most was, "You're doing great, just relax!" Which proves to me that I was doing my Dance-Dance thing, focusing all on the moves and not on the rhythm. Regardless, I had an awesome time and I think I'm a little in love with it. They do it twice a month at this building not too far from my house, so we'll have to see if I can talk someone in to going with me.

'Cause today's just a day like the day that he started.*

My blond moments of the week thus far: Tuesday we had an interview at work and I brought the candidate to the conference room. He was a little early so I thought I would give him a heads up that the interview would begin at the scheduled time or a few minutes after. So after I got his application from him I looked at my wrist and said, "The interviews won't begin until 1 o'clock." Then I looked back up at him with a big grin on my face and said, "I don't know why I looked at my wrist when clearly I don't have a watch on." In fact...I haven't worn a watch since probably high school or freshman year of college.

*~*~*~*~*

I got an e-mail from G-sauce the other day, we're planning a trip to Delaware and New Jersey at the end of the month. She is looking into things we can do so she had two questions for me. The first one was, "Do you like NSYNC?" I looked at those letters and tried to figure out what they stood for, "New something York North Carolina?" I wrote back and told her I had no clue what that was. It took her some time to write back and when she did she said, "N'sync, they had Justin Timberlake." Oh how embarrassing. Yes! I know who N'sync is, but with it all capitalized I read it as an acronym. She was relieved to find that I do know who they are...I don't know how relieved since I also said I had a few songs but am not really into them (or ever was) and that may have been something she was interested in doing.

Wait, nobody has ever quoted me back to me before!*

P.S. highlight of my day...my blog was linked in this blog. For a girl who just wants to have a famous blog...this is big. Now on to the post:

Do you ever get restless? You're just sitting there and your entire body is itching to do something or go somewhere? I've got that, I'm suffering as I type from a restlessness that I can't really identify.

I think I usually get this way in the spring because for a majority of my life spring has signified the beginning of the end. All through school spring came just before summer, in college spring was when you were packing up your things to either move or to put in storage while you went home for the summer. Spring is the season of change and new possibilities and I just don't see any penciled in on my calendar and it's driving me crazy.

By the end of the month I want to have done something different and new. I know I have a trip to the Eastern states scheduled for the end of April, but it's not enough to quench my thirst I suppose. Something's gotta give, something in my day to day life needs refreshing/renewal or I need to change something. It doesn't have to be a dramatic thing, it could be painting a room, getting a new routine, finding a new "can't put it down" book to read.

I don't know, I'm just getting antsy. It's an annoying sensation, but it's not nearly as bad as the, "want to give up on everything" mood I was in a couple of weeks ago (I didn't know at the time it was because I was exhausted and sick). This is the mood that it's good to be in when you spring clean because you're ready to shed off all the old junk you've been holding on to.

Is anyone else feeling this "spring fever"?? If so, what are you doing to alleviate it? I could use some suggestions.

You ruined my jacket. Kill him alot.*

Greetings. One more 10k is under my belt. I am not all too happy with the time (69 minutes) because my goal was to do it in under an hour. With the mile time I had from November's 8k I figured this was within my grasp. Of course - a week and a half before I was sleeping on my couch in what my friend has described as, "an 18 hour coma". I wish our bodies would go along with our minds when our minds have decided that we are no longer sick, or that maybe we never even were sick. But in typical human body fashion, mine did not listen. I ran the first mile or so with my sister, Kathryn, the personal, mental goal was to make it to the second mile still by her side, but weaving in and out of the large mass of people takes a lot of energy and my body powered down to conserve energy (much like your laptop might when you're battery is getting low). This was okay, we do this at all races - despite her legs being far shorter, she usually beats me to the finish line. I walked a lot of the race. I kept telling myself to run until mile 3 (or 3.1 the halfway mark) but when I saw the sign for mile 2 it became, "just make it to that." So I did. Then I walked, then I sped walked, then I jogged for a bit. I would find people who were slow and tell myself to just match their pace, but when I was running I was passing them and when I was walking they would pass me. At least I didn't have to pick many people to keep up with. At the halfway point they had water and powerade, I thought maybe I was low on electrolytes so I grabbed the powerade and sipped it, but then I felt like I was going to throw up. So at the next station I grabbed water and sipped that, and then I thought maybe I have rabies... I kept running/walking and my usual, "Run to this point" mentality didn't work. It was like, "run to this point, or until you feel you'll pass out". Near the end I jogged and ignored the feeling of death creeping up and down my legs. I saw Stephanie and Isaac and tried to keep up with them since I was so close to the finish. Normally I get a spurt of energy and go out as strong as I started but not this time. I crossed the finished and wished to die. I grabbed a bottle of water and Kathryn found me and we walked the almost mile back to the car. Neither of us felt like eating and we were both reconsidering the half marathon in November (I'm not sure if that was officially decided, but I think I would still like to try for it). We went to breakfast anyway and by the time we got our food we were feeling dandy. And just as a side note from this morning: the doctor's office had called on Friday but when I called back three minutes later it seemed they were all already gone for the day. I called back today and spoke to the woman and she said that my blood test indicated that I must have had strep a few weeks ago so they were calling in a prescription to my pharmacy. She said my blood showed a high level of strep antibodies. Good to know - two weeks after the doctor's visit (I already planned to switch doctors soon anyway). But hey, a 69 minutes 10k time doesn't look so bad now considering my body single handily fought off strep.

The Chocolateer

A few weeks ago I went on chocolate strike. Obviously for those of you who know me you know I haven't eaten chocolate in twelve years, so it wasn't that kind of strike. Ever since I started this job I have made it a point to have a candy dish, part of me feels that maybe I have this job simply for the candy dish (I have quite the collection now). I have purchased all sorts of chocolates over the last three and half years, but at the beginning of this month I had had it! My chocolate would disappear in the middle of the night! I would come in to work and there would be half the amount that had been in there when I had left the day before. Seriously folks?! That's just rude. So as I stood in the grocery store aisle and looked at the $10 bag of candy (cause I buy the super big bag) I thought, "Why do I keep spending my money for these piglets?" Cause seriously, someone was coming to my desk and helping themselves, they weren't even coming during normal business hours. So - I stopped. All this week I have been meaning to buy another bag, I figure after a few weeks of an empty candy dish I could start back up and put some in sparingly, but I kept forgetting. This morning I got in and jumped right in to work (that happens when there are 5 people standing at your desk as you walk in). As the people left, I looked over and noticed that my candy dish was full. Is it odd/sad for me to say that that is the nicest thing anyone has done for me this week (at work)? So of course I had to find out who it was because I wanted to say 'thank you'. I called the usual suspects, but all of them denied it. Then Wanda suggested asking the Helpdesk guy, so I took a chance on an unknown kid* and sent him an e-mail. Turns out it was him! I feel like that was super nice, and now I will be thinking of something nice to do in return!

I'm one stomach flu away from my goal weight.*

January - 4

February - 3

March - 4

Animal Farm by George Orwell Three words for you: I hate pigs. I know that there is deeper meaning to the entire book, but my initial reaction at the end was, "Those pigs!" *Fist of rage pumping in the air*. But as I said there's a deeper story being told here, very political, and it made me angry. I read this book because my all time favorite book of my life is 1984 by the same author. I wouldn't say that this one will make the favorites list, and I had trouble remembering what animals were what (he went to names and I was like, "Horse? Pig? What?" but it didn't take away from the general message). Overall - worth the read. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman LOVE IT!! What's not to like about a book that begins with a murder? I overall really enjoyed this book, there were times when I had trouble getting through spots but for the most part it kept my attention. This is the same guy who wrote Coraline, so if you liked that book/movie, you'll probably like this one. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld Behemoth is the sequel to Leviathan. So far, so good. You know how I worry with series books. So far Scott Westerfeld has done a good job keeping my interest and at the same time I am learning bits and pieces of history (which he clarifies at the end of both books what is real from what is fiction). Really like it. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson I have to admit that I really enjoyed/was really scared of this story. My friend had mentioned that it was a quick read, so I decided to add it to my list (I need all the quick reads I can get). It's not that quick (though there were times I couldn't put it down), and it's not the only story in the book. There are about 11 stories in the book, but the longest and main one is "I Am Legend". If you've seen the movie then I feel it important to tell you that it is completely different...completely. I mean, everything is pretty much changed (i.e. back story, character's background, the dog, the premise...the only thing that is shared is the main character's name). And the title makes more sense as the book. I like the book better, but I suppose if I don't consider them the same story then it doesn't matter. Richard Matheson is a very morbid writer, some of the stories I liked, some I thought were a little too over the top. So I wouldn't suggest reading these unless you have a good stomach for morbidity...and blood. And don't read at night if you live by yourself...creepy. ...Rambling. Sorry.