Busy Weekend

Drove to Connecticut and home on Saturday, with the dog my parents adopted from a shelter in Ohio.  I don't understand the logistics, but I can tell you that the dog is a sweetie.  Then yesterday, a full day.  Started out by running the Beach to Beacon 10K, which I not only finished but actually won.  That's right.  However, since all the other competitors, plus the race organizers, did the race on Saturday, I was the only racer on Sunday.  To the untrained eye, it might just have looked like me going on a 6 mile run.  Still, it was my first 10K and I'm very pleased with the result.  Then a celebratory brunch with a couple of friends, and a drive up the coast to the beautiful spot where PJM's people hail from.  Some skinny dipping, lots of looking at boats, a lobster roll and some homemade lemonade on the dock of an uncrowded lobster pound.  Raspberries by the roadside, the dog romping in the poison ivy, sunburned skin.  Some smooching, some crying.  The man from the north and I can't seem to walk away from one another, although we keep agreeing that it makes sense.  Friends asked me what I was planning for Sunday and I told them I was getting my heart gently broken.  The emphasis yesterday was on the 'gently', leaving the 'broken' for another day.  I drove home, smiling in spite of myself, and en route got a text message telling me that shrimp were on the grill in a friend's backyard, so I pulled off at a corner store and arrived with ice cream.  We feasted on shrimp and grilled zucchini, salad and rice and grilled tofu, and as I spooned sweet raspberry sherbet into my mouth I felt drowsy and complete.      

Comments

[a]

Do you ever think maybe its not broken, it's in training? Like the soreness when you start running - it hurts and hurts until you are running gracefully and not thinking about it at all. And if you never tried to run, you'd never realize how much it might hurt sometimes. But aren't you glad you started running?

He may or may not be the final race, so to speak, but maybe it just feels good to give that part of your heart a workout. Even if it hurts sometimes.

[Rayne of Terror]

ooooh oh ooooh, raising hand high! I have a question a week late for all request days. Why do people who went to Ivy League schools say things like, "I went to school in Connecticut" or "I went to school on the East Coast"? I tagged along to my sister's 10th high school reunion and we had to drag out of one girl that she went to Yale. Do people generally faint dead away if you admit where you went to school?

[ms]

I'm sorry to hear about how things have changed vis-a-vis the man. Your entries convey the sense that he has changed you somehow, in a good way--that's a wonderful thing for someone else to do for you.

I also love the metaphoric nature of your 10K run triumph. You ran alone, without reference to other runners, you set your pace and ran your race, and you won.

Rayne brings up something I struggle with--I'm curious what you (and others) have to say about it. I went to one of the top 3 law schools in the country (after doing my undergrad at a very non-ivy state university), and I always feel torn between (1) wanting to be modest (what the hell does it mean, anyway, in any real sense?! Nothing.) and not wanting to seem like a braggart, and (2) not wanting to seem like a pretentious prat by saying "I went to school in Connecticut/Stanford/Cambridge." So usually I wind up just mumbling the name in a very hurried way and then slightly changing the topic to the kind of law I practice. Bleah.

[a]

What happened to just being frank? There are times when it makes sense to mention your alumnus by name, and times it is "normal" to refer to it as "a great mid-sized research based university." (ok, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment about my school. Usually it's just "at my school" or "where I went to college.") If you say "I went to law school" and the conversation moves on - let it. If you say "I went to law school" and someone asks "where" then answer.

I think both the unnatural inclusion and exclusion of your school's name come off equally offensive. Be natural. You went to school there. Also: Be proud!