Notes from the Red Bird House

A few moments ago, as I was putting my Christmas Eve dinner in the microwave - a Tupperware of Olive Garden I took from leftovers at work because I knew I would be too lazy to stop at HEB on my way home - I pondered about how pathetic I probably seem from the outside looking in. It's Christmas Eve and I'm alone. My choice, lest anyone think I'm playing the victim. There's no "Oh, poor me" about it. I've been fond of saying this year that "It's not my religion, not my holiday. Not my circus, not my monkeys." And it's true. I'm an atheist. What do I have to celebrate? Of course I could. Other atheists do. Again, it's my choice. Mine. But tonight for the first time in years, I did stop to ponder. Part of it is gifts. Well, that and the debt they bring. I like buying things for people. When I find something perfect for them or something I know they need. I'll buy stuff year-round (when and if I have the money). I don't think

Right up until I sat down to write, the exciting part of my Friday night was going to involve deciding which book to read next. I have never felt so cool and un-cool...simultaneously. I know. I know. I'm a non-reader. Historically speaking anyway. I proudly told all of my graduate school professors (It might have even been in my application essay) that I don't read. Unless it's assigned (and much of that was a BEATING and undertaken begrudgingly). Yeah, I gave up TV over the summer in favor of reading, bought a Kindle this fall, AND this makes my second blog in barely a month about books, but I often still really, really feel like the non-reader I have long professed to be. I stayed up an extra half hour to finish a book last night. I'm not presenting that as evidence that I'm now a reader . I'm merely stating a fact. I could have turned out the light with fifteen pages to go. Could have. Somehow, though, it would have felt unfinished. Because it would have be

I've determined that life is all about having the courage to live it. Ok, so full disclosure. It's Christmas Day and I just got done watching "Love Actually." I know. I know. Several of the storylines are about adultery and you're squeamish, if a bit offended. I'm going to ask you to look past that. And, really, no one commits any actual adultery....even though they think about it. So let's agree to focus on the movie's broader theme of fearlessness and courage. It's far more positive and can be applied to more in life than just the pursuit of love. Not much chokes me up or makes me cry, but when Sam breaks free and runs through the airport in pursuit of "the love of his life," I cry EVERY SINGLE TIME. Because, dammit, here's a ten-year-old kid who has the courage NONE OF US HAVE. In his mind, his entire life has been whittled down to this one moment - Run after her and tell her just so she'll know or live the REST OF HIS LIFE (

"It's always your favorite sins that'll do you in." ~ from Kenny Chesney, "You and Tequila" "What's this?" I asked as I took the Sonic cup from her hands and peered inside. A spoon stuck out of the top. It had to be ice cream, by the look of it vanilla with tell-tale black specks. Only one thing that could be. "Oreo Blizzard," she confirmed as I handed the cup back. "My favorite." No lie. I love Oreo Blizzards, I just seldom eat them. "Have some." She gestured the cup back my direction. I shook my head. I'm trying to lose weight or at the very least trying not to gain it. Plus it's the holidays and sweets have been everywhere. She knows this. "It's just a bite. It won't kill you." Resigned, I agreed. I took the cup from her and looked at the spoon, the only spoon handy. "Can I use your spoon?" I asked. She looked at me like I was an idiot. "I don't hav

I wanted to touch her hand. Feel her fingers intertwined with mine. That's it. Just once. For a moment. Then I'd be done. I'd be good. It would be enough. Or it would be addicting. And I'd be fucked. Absolutely. Unequivocally. Fucked. So I did nothing. I sat, I spoke. Gestured with my hands. Perhaps too much. I don't know. One day it would go away. The craving, the necessity, the need to know. It always did. Surely, she was like the others, the rest. Wasn't she? Surely, I thought. Still talking, still gesturing. Still keeping my hands busy. But as I looked at her, I realized. She wasn't them; they weren't her. And there was nothing I could do. I was fucked. Absolutely, unequivocally fucked . She was becoming what she shouldn't be, couldn't be. There was little I could do to stop it. A touch or not. It didn't matter. I talked on, tried to take my thoughts elsewhere. Willed myself to

"Ever since that first meeting, I have known you were my fate, however from time to time I may have disguised that knowledge from myself." A.S. Byatt,  Possession . I'm reading a novel that it turns out - after a fashion...ok, like 210 pages - is about a forbidden love. He's a somewhat older famous poet who's been married for many years. She is an aspiring poetess who lives in a sort of solitude with a (nutso) lesbian who secretly or not-so-secretly (I haven't gotten all the way there yet) covets her and dislikes (ok, abhors) her seeming affection for the poet-guy. A chance meeting leads to letters (it's the mid-1800s so...) which lead to a not-exactly-chance meeting or two. In the midst of all that nutso lesbian rips up and burns a bunch of letters and a bit later in the story throws herself off a bridge with heavy rocks sewn into her pockets. I'm certain that there's more...I don't know...literary stuff I'm supposed to be getting fro

I don't know where to start. Originally, I was going to begin by discussing the three books I'm reading. Seriously. Yes, the Begrudging Reader (that's me) is actually reading multiple books. At once. One is a 'real' book; the others are electronic (which, let me tell you, greatly reduces the amount of crap I schlep around on a daily basis). Two were recommended by friends (more on this in a moment) and one is a light-hearted-easily-read-at-the-gym-lesbian-romance-minus-the-usual-erotica-that-seems-to-come-standard-in-lesbian-romances that I chose myself. In my reader days - late high school and college - I usually read more than one book at a time so that I'm reprising that now isn't as surprising to me as it might be to others. I get bored easily and if I want to keep reading (rather than mindlessly watching TV), I need a second and even a third book. In this case, there's a little more to it than that. You see...and this is where it gets slightly emb

I knew it was a poor decision when I pulled it out of the drawer. My usual running sports bra was MIA and not wanting to waste valuable time searching for it, I went with Plan B. Ok, actually Plan C. Plan B tends to chafe when I wear it running (It's awesome for tennis and gym workouts), so even though the particular sports bra is Plan C for a reason and I knew it probably wouldn't go smoothly, I went with it. In my early morning, not-quite-caffeinated-enough logic, the fact that Plan B would definitely chafe and Plan C might chafe decided me. If you've ever hopped in the shower after a long run with raw skin along your bra line and turned to face the water, you understand. Imagine a thin line of essentially road rash and hot water. I promise you'll want to come out of the rest of your skin when the water hits. Sadly, it's either deal with the pain or not shower. Yes, there are products that are designed to prevent chafing, but I'm old school and cheap. Plus my

"Find a thought that serves you better." ~ Deena Kastor I went to Iceland last month to run a half marathon. As I sat in my hotel room the morning of the race, I kicked myself. I'd left the book at home. I travel light. If it isn't going to have a daily impact, it stays home. Period. The book, a hardback copy of "Let Your Mind Run", was bulky and heavy and more than I wanted to schlep from Austin to Minneapolis to Reykjavik. This was all fine and dandy in theory and for the first eight days of my trip. But that morning - the morning I'd spent a long, hot Central Texas summer training for - was upon me, just less than two hours away. I was in a good frame of mind. I'd tapered for a few days and done a fairly easy 10k running tour the day before (If you run and end up in Reykjavik, you gotta check out Go! Running Tours Reykjavik and ask for Fridrick). My legs felt surprisingly decent considering I'd walked and ran over 30,000 steps the day bef

I thought I'd be impressed with Iceland. I mean otherwise why would I have come here? I suppose it'll happen one of these days, one of these travels. I'll pick a destination that disappoints. That'll have to wait for another time. Iceland (Well, Reykjavik specifically) rocks. Austere, yet friendly. Forbidding, yet warm. A long-term stay is surely not for the woosy among us. It takes a hardiness, of spirit, mind, and body, I should think, to survive here. Winter is just now coming - Saturday being its first official day in Iceland - in October. My guess, though I have nothing to back it up, is that it'll last until April, the end of April. Six full months of absolute cold, stormy cold, severe cold. Hell, if it's cold now, I can only imagine what February is like. Nonetheless, native Icelanders, the intrepid descendents of Vikings, a heritage they seem insanely proud of (and why shouldn't they be?), will roll with it. These are people who swim in the ocean o

New places, by and large, aren't my favorite. Then why do I love travel? Patience. As they say, "Wait for it..." Whenever I arrive in a new city, I am instantly uncomfortable. In other words, my comfort zone is blown. I'm confused, anxious, unhappy. Everything is...well...foreign. I don't recognize anything - not one landmark or one street. Without Google Maps, I am lost. North and South blur, east and west, too (Who am I kidding? Even with Google Maps, it's all a blur. What in the Hell direction am I supposed to walk? I can't tell you how many times I walk ten steps in the wrong direction only to reverse course and realize I'm still not going the right way).  When I step off the bus, as I did in Reykjavik, or exit the train station, as I've done just about everywhere else, I tell myself that if I can find my hotel, I never have to  leave it. I can close the door and be safe. I have to play mind games in the beginning. I have to. Otherwise the f

I wonder when I'll stop having these bouts of anxiety. So this time it hit me somewhere over Canada about the time "Deadpool 2" ended and I had to go in search of something else to watch. With my attention freed up for the first time in a few hours, I had nothing else to think about. What in the f*** was I doing going to Iceland? To run? For a brief moment I doubted my actual sanity. What had I been thinking? Of course the pre-flight graphic on the video screen that touted Iceland as the third windiest place in the world - something I hadn't realized nor researched (much like the seven mountains in Bergen) - made me pucker a little but the thought - the actual thought - that I'd somehow f***ed up didn't occur to me until much later. More than I can even recollect ran across my addled brain - in no particular order - You checked a bag?!? What in the f*** did you do that for? What if it doesn't show up? What if the collection of the bag slows you down? Di

They say it kind of snarky, sarcastic. "Yep, just living the dream." Like they are doing anything but living a dream. A nightmare perhaps but not a dream. I always have to wonder, though. If life is so awful, so un-dreamlike, why don't they do something to change it? I suppose they are mired, stuck in a life they spent years dreaming of and pursuing, and have absolutely no idea how to escape. If they even know escape is possible. Most of them are living some incarnation of the American Dream - education, job, house, marriage, family - and it's nothing like they imagined it would be. "I guess this is all there is...," they think. "Unless I win the lottery, beat the house in Vegas." Of course they never play the lottery, never go to Vegas. They merely sit tangled up in a shitty status quo and snark about how they are "living the dream." I feel for them. It would be hard not to. They're miserable. They've made a choice, made a bed

"I love this powerful statement: 'Define yourself.' I rehearsed it a million times during the 2005 Chicago Marathon."  ~ D. Kastor I can tell you the last time I ran long because it's also the last time I wrote anything longer than a social media post. I didn't take time off on purpose. Life just got busy. Days and afternoons off (of which there are honestly precious few) got sucked away by tennis matches, bouldering, grocery shopping, weight training, laundry, and a library book I needed to finish before its due date. See? Life. I flew to Las Vegas a couple days ago for a long weekend to visit my father and planned a long run while there. The weather promised to be coolish and the humidity significantly lower than at home, plus (and probably most importantly) race day loomed and I hadn't put in any miles in far too long. And my last miles (the ones that inspired a blog about turning lemons into lemonade) positively sucked. At some point, I was

Some days I have nothing to write about. I turn on my laptop, sip my coffee, and nothing. I can be in the mood, want to write, maybe even need to write, and nothing comes. Nothing. A fragment of an idea here, a notion that never takes off there. Today, though, is not one of those days. Luckily and unluckily - Yes, all at the same time - I have too much to write, too many topics; my brain is one giant run-on sentence. Back in the day, my creative writing professor told us that many writers use movement (a walk, in most cases) to stimulate ideas. I have found that to be absolutely true. Whether it's a walk, run, solo game of ping-pong, spin ride, or tennis match, the result is usually the same  - IDEAS, stuff to write, half written blogs or stories bouncing around my brain dying to see the light of day. Well, dying to see the outside of my brain. If you've been reading my blog posts this summer, you know what day it is. If I'm overflowing with ideas and have far too much to

I quit watching TV in May or maybe June. It was an experiment. I blogged about it even. I spent a week on vacation not watching TV and ended up no worse for wear. In fact, I enjoyed the not watching so much that I decided to see if I could survive an entire month. I figured after the month was up - if I even made it a whole month - I'd run right back to TV. After all, a habit is a habit. Plus it's TV. You can't not watch TV, can you? I'm here to tell you that you can. You actually can not watch TV. Because by and large, TV is crap. When my month was up - simply out of boredom and old habit - I scrolled through the guide on a couple occasions. And by "scrolled through the guide" I mean I spent forty-five minutes of my life trying to find something decent to watch. Yes, one night I bumped into a Lifetime Movie Network movie that was pretty good, but that was an aberration. I have just shy of a zillion channels and there's still nothing worth watching, in m

"Be patient, for the world is broad and wide." ~ Romeo and Juliet Is it possible to look at too many travel photos? My Instagram feed is jammed with them. I follow travel photographers, travel and tourism bureaus, tour companies, travel magazines, people who live in my favorite places and post lots of pictures, and a variety hashtags for the places I really love, like #sweden and #stockholm (duh), things I really love, like #lighthouses, and places I hope to visit sooner than later, like #malta #argentina and #portugal. Sure, I follow my share of friends, dogs, a couple boulderers and runners, and few companies whose products I like, but by and large my feed filled with pretty pictures of places I dream of going.  And that's the crux of it, actually. I look at all of these pictures - I could honestly scroll for hours - and want to go EVERYWHERE. Literally. No exaggeration. I never wanted to go to Italy, then Conde Nast (or some such magazine) started posting pi