Alarmed

Twice in the past week I’ve dreamt I was inside a burning building. This probably has something to do with the events of last Saturday afternoon.

At about 4:30pm that day, I was sitting on my couch reading a book. I heard a small commotion coming from my neighbors above and to the right of me, and I figured they were just being rowdy or arguing, as they are wont to do. A woman yelled, “Get out!” and there was the sound of a door opening and fast footsteps in the corridor above me.  I thought this was just the argument’s climax, but then the woman began yelling, “My house is on fire! My house is on fire!” I stopped my reading and stood up.

I heard an alarm go off in their apartment, and the woman kept yelling. Then a shrill sound pierced the air in my apartment—the building’s fire alarm had been pulled.  In the past, I’ve wondered which items I would gather and take with me if I were in a fire.  In my imagination, I’d take a quick inventory and go around picking up the most important things, things I just couldn’t do without.  There would be enough time to give my apartment a once-over.  In that moment last weekend, I learned different.  I grabbed my keys, my cell phone, my money clip, and stuffed them into my pockets.  I glanced around the room and thought, “Everything here is replaceable.” I opened the door and looked outside.  The woman and her two little boys had climbed into her car, in front of my apartment, and were backing out.

I walked out toward them and looked up to the second floor.  The bedroom window in their apartment was open, and flames were licking up over the sill.  The whole room appeared to be orange. The woman’s husband had uncoiled the fire hose, and was sticking the nozzle through the open window, spraying.  My next-door neighbor ran to assist him with a small kitchen fire extinguisher.  The fire went out quickly.  The husband and a neighbor reached down inside the window and pulled out a smoldering mattress.  They tossed it and a box spring into the parking lot, where the woman’s car had been parked, and soaked them with the hose.  The woman and her two little boys were still just sitting there in the idling car, backed out into the middle of the lot. 

I went back into my apartment, but the sound of the alarm was too painful.  I waited in the parking lot with several other people, until firefighters came, sirens blaring, to check on things and turn the alarm off.  I heard later that the little boys in the car had started the fire.  The parents had pushed the bed up against the baseboard heater and told the kids not to turn the heat on.  But apparently the boys had ignored this command in the same way their parents had ignored good judgement.  I came home from work on Monday to find a note taped on my door and every other door in the building. It recommended keeping furniture away from baseboard heaters.

Looking Forward to Hawaii and Healthy Knees

Taro farm outside of Princeville, Kauai. (Elisa Michelson)

Five weeks is a long time to go without writing a new blog post. It's not long enough, though, to heal a knee. I haven't done any running since the last time I wrote, but this week and last, I did some dead lifts at the gym. The first session was fine, but this week the knee wound up sore for a couple of days. It didn't feel bad for long though, which makes me want to try some light squats next week, just to see if a little bit of easy lifting will help to build strength and aid recovery.

In travel news, well ... there isn't much. And there won't be much until January, when I go with my girlfriend and her family to Kauai for two weeks. That should be an interesting trip, to say the least. I get along well with her family, but the thought of spending two straight weeks on an island with a small group of people intimidates me. As an introvert, I need time by myself to collect my thoughts. And as a task-oriented, independent person, I have trouble avoiding the need to check things off of my mental and written lists. In fact, this blog post is something I'm checking off of a list right now. I'm always open to personal growth through new experiences, but at the same time, there are certain personality traits I have that will never change, and I'm at an age where I know who I am and I'm comfortable with that person.

Most of the traveling I've done in my adult life has been by myself. Some has been with my family, which doesn't always work out well, because of the vast differences between my brother, sister, and me. And some has been with friends, which is usually OK, as long as the others in the group don't spend too much time hemming and hawing over what to do, avoiding activities I suggest, or doing activities I have no interest in (e.g. attending The Phantom of the Opera in Vegas, 2006).

My hope, of course, is that everyone on this upcoming trip will get along swimmingly, and we'll have nothing but fond tales to tell upon our return. And really, I'm sure this trip will be a lot of fun. So that's what my outlook will be in the 74 days between now and takeoff. And if the trip is a disaster, at least I'll have more to write about than "well, my knee still hurts and nothing new or interesting is happening that's worth blogging about. Boo hoo hoo."

A Sad but Wise Decision

The 2012 Bellingham Bay Marathon will not be the first marathon I run, as I originally planned. Thanks to two persistent injuries (one on the inner part of my left knee and one on the outer part of my girlfriend’s left knee), my girlfriend and I have opted to sit this marathon out.  It wasn’t an easy decision, but we both felt it was the wisest option.

Sure, we could have run in pain and then limped along as far as our legs could carry us.  But we both agreed that our chances of finishing this race were extremely slim.  So, rather than tearing up our tendons or ligaments or whatever, we’re choosing to rest until we’re completely healed.  We’d prefer not to ruin our legs for the future.  This way, we’ll both have a better chance of crossing the finish line at the next marathon we train for.

When will that next marathon be?  Right now, we don’t know. What we do know is that after our initial injuries, taking two or three weeks off and then easing back into short distances and a run/walk routine didn’t allow either of us to heal.  So it might take a couple of months worth of rest (read: no training at all) for us to properly heal and be ready to begin training again.  We’ll both know more after our visits to the doctor in the coming weeks.  We also know that when we do begin training again, we’ll have to take it slow. No more forcing ourselves to run faster than we’re able.  And no more four-month marathon training. We’ll have to ramp up the distances slowly, over the course of about six months, I suspect. That will be a better way of going from 0 to 26.2. (Maybe a gait analysis would serve me well, too.)

I want to make sure we have this in writing, so I cannot renege. Elisa and I will run a marathon. We’re not giving up on that. We’re just postponing it so that we can actually finish the race. Make no mistake: it will happen.

Wine Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse

Humans aren’t the only beings that love to throw parties centered around alcohol.  And we’re not the only ones who sometimes reap physical harm from such Epicureanism.

Earlier tonight, as I quietly sipped down a glass of merlot, I was unwittingly setting the scene for a raucous fruit fly soiree.  You see, after I finished my drink, I left a drop in the bottom of my goblet and set it aside on the counter.  Twenty minutes later, I walked past the counter again and was astonished by the scene there.  Inside the glass, near the drop of wine at the bottom, was a small crowd of three fruit flies mingling and drinking.  On the rim, another fly had found a partner during the evening’s events, and the two were humping away, oblivious to their cohorts below.  I could be wrong, but I thought I heard R&B music and caught a faint whiff of marijuana.

Who were these little hell-raisers?  I hadn’t invited them, and yet here they were, getting drunk and fornicating on my countertop.  I snatched the glass and rinsed it out in the sink, intending to send each of the hoodlums down to a watery grave.  But only two of them went down the drain, while the others flew off in loopy, erratic patterns.  I wasn’t going to let them get away, though.  These flies had insulted me with their shenanigans, and they weren’t going to get away with it. (And frankly, they’d been floating around the kitchen all evening as I made dinner and ate it, and I was pretty annoyed. This whole wine party thing was just the last straw, and I was also bloodthirsty after having them all in the same place and coming so close to extinguishing them.)

I stalked around the kitchen, trying to keep my eyes unfocused, ready to pick out any movement in the air between me and the cabinets.  Clap! I got one!  I jiggled the fruit baskets on the counter, sending another right toward me. Clap! Another one dead!  I hunted some more and found a sixth fly sitting on a wall.  This one hadn’t been involved in the revelry, but I wanted him dead anyway.  I tried to stub him out on the wall where he was resting, but he flew away too quickly.  I saw the last of the partiers, and clap! Nothing but air between my hands. I’d lost him, so I took a break from the hunt.

I got distracted by other chores, and a few minutes later came back to the kitchen. There, on the top of my cork, which I’d turned upside-down to plug my wine bottle, was the fifth fly—the one that got away earlier.  I tried to crush him on the cork, but he evaded me.  Clap! Clap! Two misses in a row. I had to admit, he was good.  I lost him again, and then jiggled the fruit baskets.  He flew toward me and I clapped again but missed again.  He zigged and zagged, and my eyes lost him and then locked onto him, and just as he was almost out of reach, clap!  Victory!

Now, as I sip on my second glass and write of these heroic feats, I see the sixth and final fly floating in my periphery. Did he just land on my glass?  He buzzes past again and I clap once, twice. Two misses in a row.  Is there only one of them left, or are there more?  I can’t tell.  I might have to give up. I’m getting tired of this game, and there is more wine to drink.

P.S. The title of this post comes from a song by Minus the Bear. You can hear it here. (Warning: Vocals don't start until about 1:30.)

Two Steps Back?

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll even finish this marathon.  The doubts are circling inside my head, and they have been ever since my last run.  You see, on Sunday my girlfriend and I went for a three-mile run/walk.  It was supposed to be easy.  We started with a five-minute walk and then began running for four out of every five minutes thereafter.  The pace was slow, at about 11-minute miles.  Despite all the precautions (I’d also stretched beforehand), my knee started getting sore a little past the halfway point.  We slowed to a walk for a few minutes, then I decided to try running again.  We continued that cycle one or two more times until we were home.

The knee never hurt enough to warrant a full stop, and it seemed to recover fairly well along the way, but it never felt completely sound.  Afterward, and throughout the next day, it still felt a little off.  Not sore, just not quite right.  Even now, as I write this, I’m pausing to massage the affected area, just because I feel like I should whenever it crosses my mind.

My girlfriend suggested I visit a doctor, but I can’t see the point.  A doctor will only tell me what I already know: I need to rest.  Which begs the question: How can I possibly prepare for a marathon that’s less than five weeks away, when I’m resting, and when run/walking more than a couple of miles hurts my knee?  Do I just tough it out?  Do I just give up?  Will a strap help?  Do I rest all the way until race day and then see what how far I get?  Do I give in to the lady’s advice and see a doctor, because he might be able to give a specific diagnosis and recommend therapy?

I think I’ll try the strap first, and then go with the last option if that fails.  But I still have to wonder, would it be wise for me to just be a cheerleader during this race, and take a long rest before attempting a marathon next year instead?

Progress, More or Less

It’s a safe bet that I won’t feel prepared to run 26.2 miles on September 30.  Three days after my longest run in a month, I was out on the road again this Wednesday.  This latest run went about as well as Sunday’s run, more or less.  More, if you focus on the distance (5.2 miles, up from 4.5).  Less, if you consider the way I felt afterward.  I walked whenever my knee began to feel even the slightest bit sore, tense, or wobbly.  And I kept walking until beyond the point when I was sure it was safe to run. Then, I would jog until I felt something in my knee, and the cycle would continue.

After the run, though, my knee felt a little tight in that spot just below and to the inside of my kneecap.  It was just the tiniest bit sore last night and today.  I was originally planning to run again tomorrow, and then again this coming Sunday, but I’ve decided it would be best to skip tomorrow’s run. If I am unprepared for the marathon in five weeks, it will be because I don’t have the endurance, not because I’m too hurt to run.  It’s not an ideal situation, obviously, but it’s one I’m going to have to come to peace with.

After all, the goal is to finish any way possible. Like my girlfriend’s T-shirt design idea conveys: run, walk, crawl, roll, finish.  Conquer it! 

How to Screw Up Your Marathon Training, Part 2: Slowly Fixing It

As I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t been able to run much lately because of an injury four weeks ago. This injury could’ve been prevented or at least not exacerbated if I’d been more careful and stopped running sooner, and if I hadn’t chosen to run another mile and a half after I finally did stop.

Alas, I made some unwise choices, and am still paying for them.  As I said before, my knee felt fine at the end of my 12-mile run.  But later that evening, it started to get sore again. It wasn’t the sharp pain I’d felt during my run, but a dull soreness and tightness.  I hoped it would feel better if I just let myself get a good night’s sleep and avoided moving it too much for a day or two.  If only it were that easy. 

A few days (and a few good night’s sleeps) later, I was still sore.  It felt like my all the stuff in my knee—the kneecap, the muscles and ligaments and tendons surrounding it—were a little loose in addition to being a little bruised. Like they needed something to hold them together, and they needed more rest.  I probably should have gotten a brace or strap or something to make it feel better, but I didn’t.  Walking seemed to help a little.  Time was the main ingredient for healing though.  So I waited until my knee felt better, and then I went for a wimpy run.

It was 15 days after my injury when I finally ran again.  My lungs were still in good shape, but my legs were lacking, as could be expected.  I jogged through 1.8 miles of semi-hilly Bremerton streets before my knee started to feel tight and I got worried.  I walked after that, for about a half mile, jogged a few blocks, then walked another half of a mile until I was home.  It was pathetic, but at least my knee hadn’t exploded.

Another six days after that run—three weeks after my injury—I did 2.3 miles and felt mostly fine. A little bit of tightness, but nothing too bad.  I didn’t even slow down to walk. Sure, I stopped and rested at two separate stoplights, but I still felt accomplished.  A few days later, my girlfriend and I talked about her plan to run/walk the marathon in light of her own knee injury.  I begrudgingly started to accept the fact that I would have to take the same tack.  So, on Sunday, as I previously wrote, I ran/walked (but mostly ran!) 4.5 miles in my longest training session (I can’t say “run”) since my injury.  I have to admit, it worked pretty well, and the most important thing now is not shrinking my time, but building my distance. 

I don’t know if I’ll be satisfied with run/walking a marathon instead of simply running it, but I’m willing to let my pride take a backseat to my health for now.  And if I’m not satisfied with the race, I’d like to rest for a few months, heal completely, and then run a marathon for real. But we’ll see how I feel at the finish line on September 30. 

How to Screw Up Your Marathon Training, Part 1

Today was my “long run” day in my marathon training, and I did about 4.5 miles. That’s about 15 miles shorter than where I’m supposed to be at this point in the training, and I didn’t even run the entire time.  Nevertheless, this run marked a little bit of progress. 

You see, four weeks ago I hurt myself.  About 5 miles into a 12-mile run, I started getting sore in the calf of one leg and the hamstring of the other.  I probably should have stopped to stretch, but I figured it was just muscle soreness so it wouldn’t turn into a long-term problem.  I kept going, thinking I could overcome the pain and finish the 12 miles before taking a break. Then, at just past the 10-mile mark, my left knee began to hurt. Badly. This wasn’t muscle pain, and I couldn't run through it. It felt like a ligament on the inner part of my knee was hurt. I don't know if the soreness in my muscles had caused me to alter my stride, leading to this knee pain, but I was starting to wish I'd stopped sooner. 

I stopped and walked for a minute, then found a good place to stretch by the side of the road.  The sharp pain in my knee didn’t persist after I stopped running, but my calf and hamstring were still very tight and sore.  I spent three or four minutes stretching, then tried walking again.  My leg muscles were still tight, but slightly less sore than before, and my knee felt fine.  I looked at the GPS watch I was borrowing from my girlfriend (who has also been suffering from a knee injury), and saw that I was trotting along at a 20-minute mile pace.  I thought about the prospect of taking 30 minutes to get home, a mere mile and a half away, and began running again.

I was just over a mile from home, and my iPod shuffled randomly to “Your Disease” by Saliva.  I started trucking along faster and faster as the music played.  I was going to get home and have a great time to show for it.  And I did.  I finished that 12-mile run in great time, despite stopping and stretching.  And the knee wasn’t a problem.  And then, an hour or two later, it was.

to be continued …

Marathon Update

It's been a month since I started training for a marathon.  Which means I have about two and a half more months to reach the 26.2 mile mark.  How am I progressing toward that goal, you ask?  Well, first of all, thanks for asking.  I'm progressing fairly well, if I do say so myself.  There have been a few bumps in the road, so to speak (har har), but for the most part, I've been on easy street (OK, that's enough).

I'm using what's apparently the most popular marathon training plan, because every time I mention that I'm training, the person I'm talking to says, "Oh, are you doing long runs on the weekends and short runs during the week, with some hills thrown in?"  Or something similar.  And I say, "Why, yes, I am."

My most recent conversation of this sort was with a coworker today at lunchtime.  He recited his part flawlessly, and I proudly informed him that my longest run so far was a whopping 10 miles.  Ten miles! (I didn't repeat it to him, but I'm repeating it here because I'm damn proud of it.) That's the second-farthest I've ever run in my entire life (that's nearly 30 years, kids).  The farthest was 13.1 miles, when I did a half-marathon in November of 2009.  In a few weeks, I'll surpass even that distance.  Assuming all the training continues to go well.

Which brings me to the kinks.  There are two kinks at the moment: the right leg and the left leg.  Specifically, the muscles at the very bottom of each leg, just above the foot, on both the front and the back of each leg.  These areas have been tight during runs and even on my rest days.  I was hoping the tightness would go away on its own as I continued to train, but so far, no.  It's not a huge problem yet, but as my distances get longer, I'll need to be looser.  I'm trying to stretch more often and stay flexible, so we'll see if that helps.

My girlfriend, however, has not been so fortunate in her training.  For the past couple of weeks, she's been wrestling with a sore IT band, a bundle of tissue that comes down the thigh and around the knee.  The best thing for it is rest, and maybe a little physical therapy, but she's having trouble doing either one. I hate to see her struggling like this, and can only imagine how frustrating it must be.  I hope it heals quickly, because I don't want her to be unprepared for the marathon or to have to skip it, leaving me to run all by my lonesome. Or, worse yet, leaving me to run this marathon alone and then convincing me that I need to run another marathon with her when she's healed!  Gasp!  Please heal quickly!

Blue (in a good way)

With all the complaining I do about the unfavorable weather here in western Washington, I need to create some balance by celebrating the good days.  And lately, there have been a lot of good days.  Summer did not arrive on time, at the exact moment my little ticker turned over and started counting the other direction.  But it has arrived nonetheless.

Two weeks ago, I went to Boise, Idaho, for my cousin's wedding.  When I left Washington, it was still a bit chilly and cloudy, but not as bad as it had been at the very end of spring.  I was glad to get away to sunny, warm, beautiful Boise and the mountains outside the city, where the wedding took place.  Speaking to my girlfriend on the phone that weekend, I was informed that the Washington skies continued to be gray.

Since arriving home a week and a half ago, though, I've been incredibly fortunate.  Some summers, the weather will stay cool and wet into the middle of July.  This year, the warm days began shortly before July 4, giving us a better than usual holiday.  At times during the past couple of weeks, I've even been hotter than I'd like.  But I refuse to complain about that.  I figure that if I whine about the cold, I'm not allowed to whine about the heat.  And the truth is, with so much cold throughout the year, I really don't mind the heat.

Western Washington is a breathtakingly beautiful place, with its trees, mountains, and water. (In fact, I think I just saw an eagle fly over the inlet outside my window.) But it's so much easier to appreciate all that beauty when the gray covering is lifted and the spectacle is well lit and accompanied by what I consider one of nature's most appealing sights: a clear, blue sky.

Not the most recent photo, but you can't argue with that view. (That's my brother in the foreground and a friend behind him.)

Marathon

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend ran her third half-marathon of the past year.  She had tried to convince me to do it with her, but I had repeatedly declined, although I was tempted to say yes.  I didn't think I would have enough time to train, and I didn't want excessive running to cause me to go back to being as skinny as I used to be.

Then, in the weeks leading up to her half-marathon, my girlfriend started asking if I wanted to run a full marathon with her later this year, on September 30 (one of her New Year's resolutions is to complete a marathon before the year is over).  I hemmed and hawed for a few weeks, trying to decide if I should give in.  Running a marathon is something I've thought about doing in the past, and it's an achievement I had wanted to conquer.  But so far the closest I've come is a half-marathon two-and-a-half years ago.  Since then, I've run a couple of miles here and there, but I haven't done much of anything to keep up with endurance athletics at all.  Still, I've always had a bit of the runner in me, and I enjoy staying in shape.  I also feel like I get sick less often when I'm running regularly.  But on the other hand, I've been trying for the past year to pack on a few extra pounds of muscle, because I was tired of being scrawny.  And I was afraid if I started running again, I'd end up losing weight.

So, before my girlfriend took her place among the horde of starters for the half-marathon two weeks ago, I made her a little bet.  I said, 'If you finish this race three minutes faster than you finished your last one, I'll run the marathon with you later this year.'  She groaned and pleaded her case.  Knocking off three minutes would be hard, she said.  She didn't know if she could do it.  I, on the other hand, knowing the way she'd been training, and knowing that she tends to push herself harder when she has an incentive, was almost completely certain that she could.  And I'd already made up my mind that I'd join her for the marathon no matter what.  Two hours and nearly twelve minutes later, she came jogging across the finish line--more than eleven minutes faster than her previous personal best.

Since then, I've started my training runs.  They've been short--between three and four miles--but I'm far enough out of shape to necessitate starting small.  I'm already starting to feel healthier than I've felt in a long time, and I'm trying not to worry about getting too skinny.  So far my appetite is strong enough to keep me from withering away; my body is making sure I replenish every calorie burned on training runs.  And I'm still making time for the weight room.  My hope is that I'll be able to balance the running with the gym and proper calorie and protein intake, so that even if I end up losing a little bit of weight, I won't lose muscle and strength.  All-around fitness is the goal.  And finishing in less than four-and-a-half hours.

A Slow Week

I should reiterate that my research into my family history is ongoing, and the information I posted last week is merely one side of a long, complicated story.  I don't have any reason to doubt Tootsie's tales about my great-grandparents (her grandparents), but at the same time, I will do my best to find more than one source for each historical anecdote, and, wherever possible, corroborating documentation.  Stories of my ancestors are great, but I want more.  I want to know exactly what they were like, why they came to the States, and where they came from.  Interviewing living relatives will be a huge help in that (and already has been), but as I learned when I worked as a newspaper reporter, every story is better when it includes multiple sources and factual documentation.

That being said, I think my next move is to join Ancestry.com and do a little digging through some records.  That website seems like it'll be helpful, from what I've previewed so far, but I'll probably have to go further because I doubt they will have much information about my great-grandparents' lives prior to their move to the U.S. and their name change.  Exactly what that part of my research will involve is still a mystery to me.  But I'll think about what happens after Ancestry.com once I've exhausted that site's resources.  And I'll post another update once I've gathered new information.

Meet the Great-Grandparents (Tootsie Interview 1)

Last night I had the good fortune to chat with one of my dad's oldest cousins, who also happens to be a bit of a family historian.  She's in town for a visit this week, on her way up to Canada to see one of her own grandchildren.

Tootsie (aka Isabel) is the daughter of Carmen, one of my grandmother's oldest siblings (there were nine kids in all, seven who lived past infancy).  Tootsie has firsthand knowledge regarding my great-grandparents, since they were still alive when she was a child.  She was able to give me the names of everyone in my grandma's family, as well as some of their birth years, and a few anecdotes about them, which I was quick to jot down.  For instance, according to Tootsie's mother, my great-grandpa Graciano Gonzalez was originally named Graciano Tovar when he lived in Mexico.  And he didn't come to the United States in search of "the American Dream" as I had assumed.  He came as a fugitive.

What sort of crime he supposedly committed in Mexico, Tootsie didn't know.  But by the time Carmen and her siblings crossed the border with their mother, Eloisa Diaz (aka Moda), they found Graciano with a new last name, working in southern Texas.  He found work on the railroad, laying track that pointed west.  According to Tootsie, the family "followed the railroad to National City," a San Diego suburb.  That's where they settled, where Tootsie was raised, and where some of the family still remains.  From there, the descendants spread out throughout the San Diego area, up to Los Angeles where Tootsie and many of her children and grandchildren reside, and all the way up to Washington state and beyond.

But this is only the beginning of the story for me.  I have a few pages of notes from my conversation with Tootsie, and my appetite for uncovering more of my family history has been whetted.  I just might have to go to the family reunion in San Diego later this summer.

A photo from Tootsie.  She's in the middle of the back row.  My dad's oldest brother, Dennis, who turns 70 this year, is front and center.

The First Week of June

I have to add to my previous post about the depressing forecast.  Right after I posted that bit about the weather not being as dreary as I'd expected, I went outside to find the rain falling hard.  And in the days since then, the sun has shone through for a few hours, but otherwise it's been gray and wet and unseasonably cold. So the Weather Underground was dead on.  My apologies for underestimating their forecasting skills.

Next post: Progress on the family history project!

The First of June

Today was not nearly as cold and dreary as I'd expected.  It wasn't exactly sunny and warm either, but it was tolerable.  I'm not saying the Weather Underground website was wrong, but they weren't exactly right either, because I saw more sun than I'd anticipated.  That's not taking anything away from the Weather Underground, though.  No one can really predict what the weather around here is going to do, because it changes so constantly.  OK, maybe there are a few people who can predict the weather.  But they're probably old men with trick knees who say things like, "Storm's a comin'.  I can feel it in my bones," in a voice that creaks like the ancient porch their rocking chairs sit on.

The rest of us will have to keep an eye on the weather reports and stay prepared by having a raincoat, a sweater, flip-flops, and sunscreen always at the ready.  That's what I'll have to do when I go out of town this weekend.  I'm heading up to Sequim, on the Olympic Peninsula, to cheer for my girlfriend as she runs a half marathon.  We're driving up there, about 2 hours away, on Saturday afternoon.  We'll stay in her parents' RV on Saturday night, and the race will be on Sunday morning.  I'm packing layers of clothing.  I may get chilly standing out there, but that's fine.  There is something good about running a race here in western Washington during this time of year though: While it may not be sunny and pleasant for the lazy spectators, it will almost certainly be cool enough to keep the runners from overheating. Run on!

A Few Good Things About Cold, Dreary Days

Tomorrow is the first day of June, but there's no warm weather in the forecast.  In fact, according to the Weather Underground's website, the next 10 days hold nothing but rain, chances of rain, chances of T-storms, and partly cloudy skies.  It's a bit of a depressing outlook, but there are at least a few good things about cold, dreary days like those up ahead.

1. You don't have to worry about getting sunburned
2. Allergies won't flare up
3. Plants will get precious water
4. You can curl up with a book by a fire or under a blanket
Umm... let's see....
5. You don't have to squint?
There has to be more....
6. You don't have to sweat?
7. Your skin can keep that nice, pasty color?

OK, I give up.  I'm ready for summer.

The Good and The Bad

First, the bad news. I’ve got a long way to go if I want to write a thorough story about how my great-grandparents came to the United States and how the lives of their descendants have played out since then.  Right now, I know very little about these ancestors of mine.  I don’t know how or why they came from Mexico, where exactly in Mexico they came from, or even what their real names were.  I know my great-grandmother was called ‘Moda’ as a nickname, but I’ll have to ask my dad what her real name was, and what her husband’s name was.  Almost all of the family stories I’ve heard from my dad and his siblings involve their generation and my grandmother’s.  It will be interesting to dig further back.

The good news, though, is that there are people willing to help me dig further back, and further into my grandmother’s generation.  My dad and one of his sisters are interested in answering the questions I have, to the best of their ability.  Their knowledge will have some gaps, though, simply because they haven’t been around since the beginning of the story.  But there are some older relatives I can contact later, who I hope can fill in those gaps.  And for the really old stuff, well, I might just have to join Ancestry.com or dig through some records myself.  Wait, are we still in the good news part of this post?  Yes we are, because even though it’ll take some work, this is still sounding like a fun project. A little mystery to solve. 

Next time I write, I hope to have solved the mystery of my great-grandparents’ names. 

New Project: Family History

About 90 years ago, my great-grandparents moved to Texas from Mexico, along with their children.  A short time later, in the town of Hearne, a stone's throw from Austin, my great-grandmother gave birth to Anita, my grandmother.  Anita, or Anne as she would later be known, would eventually move to San Diego and live a life that my dad would tell me about in fascinating snippets as I grew up.  There were tales of guns, alcohol, car crashes, unpaid electricity bills, hobos, and tapeworms.  But until now, these stories have only been an oral history.

My goal, over the next several months, is to compile a comprehensive written history of the "Legend of Anne" as my dad calls it, along with stories from my aunts, uncles, and cousins, about our forebears.  Right now, a lot of the information I know about my ancestors is murky.  And scant.  I'm also detached from a large group of my great-grandparents' descendants, because I live in Washington state and most of them live in Southern California.  I hope that, as I begin to research and talk to my dad and other relatives, I'll be able to flesh out some of those fascinating stories and get a better idea of who my ancestors were, why they crossed the border, and how my family history has played out in the lives of those who are still living.

The Lady in 110

As I descended the stairs from the second floor, I noticed her down the path to my right.  She was in front of apartment 108, two doors down from my place, and heading my way—the lady from 110.  I quickened my pace and hurried into the small corridor containing the front doors to my apartment and apartment 105.  I pulled my keys from my pocket and, with one swift motion, unlocked the door and slipped inside.  I closed the door immediately, not wanting to look back and see if she had tried to follow me. 

I don’t often claim to be a brave man, but I’ll admit that my paranoia regarding the lady from 110 has become a little humbling.  I’m afraid to let her know which apartment is mine, though she has probably already figured it out.  So I comfort myself by thinking that if she doesn’t see me enter my apartment she can only guess that I live in either 105 or 106.  And then I hope that, if she ever gets hold of a shotgun and decides to bring about judgment on everyone who has disrespected her by avoiding eye contact or rushing away when they see her, she’ll guess wrong.  Sorry, neighbor, but I’ll be slipping out the back window as soon as I hear the first blast.

Of course I don’t really expect any of that to happen.  I don’t think the lady in 110 is violent, but she does appear to be somewhat unstable, which makes me uncomfortable.  Mostly, she talks to herself.  Or rather, mutters incoherently.  Once, as I came down the stairs from the parking lot to the walkway in front of my apartment, she surprised me by passing right in front of me.  She walked a few paces past me, then stopped her murmuring and turned around and looked at me as though she was going to say something.  She smiled, baring the three teeth in her mouth.  Then she chuckled and turned away, apparently deciding not to tell me whatever it was she had to say.  Over the next few weeks, I saw her in various places around the neighborhood while driving my car.  I tried not to make eye contact, but I could tell she was looking at me as I passed, and I couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking.

My most unsettling encounter with the lady in 110 came last week.  I was on my way to the laundry room, and had just stepped out of the corridor between 105 and my place.  I looked to the left down the path and there she was in front of the corridor that runs between 107 and 108, walking with her head down and muttering to herself.  As she looked up, I stifled an “eep!” and walked as quickly as I could up the stairs to the second floor.  When I got to the top of the stairs, I looked down and saw her grab the cigarette butt container that sits by the bench in front of 107.  It’s the type of container that looks like a skinny post with a hole on one side near the top for depositing butts and a bulbous weight at the bottom to keep it from tipping over.  She had picked it up and was bent over, swinging it like a club at nothing in particular.  She continued muttering incoherently as she did this, apparently oblivious to the world around her.  I shuddered and walked on to the laundry room.  When I came back, I walked slowly, afraid she might pop out from around a corner and startle me.  I looked around cautiously to see if she was still near my apartment, but there was no sign of her.

A couple of hours later, as it was getting dark, I took out the trash.  At my apartment complex, the dumpsters are halfway across the parking lot, in front of the laundry room.  I ascended the stairs from my place to the parking lot, dumped my trash, and headed back.  In the weakening light, I saw the woman from 110 shuffling across the parking lot in my direction, mumbling to herself as usual.  She was between me and the stairs that stand in front of my apartment.  I considered my options as I walked: I could try to breeze right past her and hope she wouldn’t do anything disturbing to me, or I could avoid running into her by going down the stairs in front of Matthew’s apartment, number 109.  Matthew makes me uneasy too, but not nearly as much as the lady in 110 does, so I chose the second option and arrived at home safely a few seconds later. 

I feel a little foolish now, letting my fear of this woman grow so large even though she has never done anything to me besides give me the willies.  Maybe I’m just a coward, and the lady in 110 deserves more pity and help than fear. But maybe it’s also good to be cautious around mentally unstable people as a self-preservation technique, even if it makes me feel like a wuss.

Revision

I think I need to revise my idea for writing about the interesting characters living around me.  I've realized that I don't really know my neighbors, and any stories about them are merely based on brief, superficial encounters I've had.

So, with that grain of salt, I would still like to give the reader an idea of what it's like to live here, by simply describing a few of the interactions I've had with some of the more interesting, quirky, and unsettling people around me.  But these will merely be sketches; nothing in-depth.  In other words, this will be very informal and subjective, and it won't be anything scientific or requiring further research, like I'd alluded to in my previous post.

I think I'll start by telling you about my encounters with the woman who talks to herself.

Cultural Experiences Right At Home

Seven months ago, I moved into the largest apartment building I’ve ever lived in, with about 75 units.  (Previous housing situations for me have included: living with four other people in a 3-bedroom house until I was 20, living in a very large house with 25 other guys while I was in college, living with a married couple [not my parents], living with another married couple [my parents], living in a hostel with a rotating cast of other people, living with my brother, living in a quiet 4-unit apartment building, and most recently living by myself during a comfortable house-sitting gig.)

During these past seven months, I’ve become annoyed with some of the people around me. But I’ve also been fascinated enough to realize that a few of them deserve to have something written about them.  That’s what I intend to do in the next few posts.  Maybe this will force me to be a little more outgoing and engaging with my neighbors, as I try to understand them in order to better write about them.  Or maybe I won’t grow, but continue to hide away in the comfort of my apartment in order to avoid dealing with these strange people.

OK, I’m only half serious about that.  Sure, some of my neighbors have peculiar personalities and behavior, and some make me angry or uncomfortable, but many are also kind and friendly.  It’s possible for us to find common ground and get along well, even though we’re culturally different from each other.  Yes, most of us are Americans, and there’s not a lot of variation in our ethnicities, but we come from diverse economic classes, which I’ve realized is a type of cultural difference.

This apartment building is in a low-rent district; one of the lowest in the county.  And if that and the cars in the parking lot are any indication, most of the people here are probably in a low-income class (the one Lexus really looks out of place).  But not all of us are originally from the same economic class, meaning we don’t have the same experiences, values, or outlooks.  So we behave differently. (Even if we all came from the same class, there would be differences; they’re just more apparent between the classes.) That’s why interacting with each other is often uncomfortable, intriguing, and always a cultural experience. 

Owning Up

I need to take a few lines here and fess up to something.  It’s nothing too scandalous, but I still need to admit that I was wrong.

Last summer, when one of my coworkers moved here to Bremerton, from New York, the weather was warm and sunny, and just plain pleasant.  But I warned her, saying, “Just wait until October.” And later, “Just wait until November,” and “Just wait until January.”  But alas, with every passing month I’ve been proven too much the pessimist. 

Living here for nearly 30 years has given me a jaded perspective on the weather.  I’ve guarded my heart, because every time I’d gotten my hopes up, the rains would come.  And the cold and the wind would come with them.  Even during the nice weather, I can’t help expecting that, any day now, it’ll start raining and it won’t stop for 6 or 7 weeks.  But this past fall and winter, and now spring, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the weather.  It’s mid-April now, and it’s sunny.  And over the past few weeks, we’ve had a lot of similarly nice days.  

So I guess I was wrong about the rainy, dreary weather I’d predicted for my new coworker.  I’ve been a curmudgeon.  I’m not going to get my hopes too high, but I’ll at least sit back and enjoy the sunshine.  But it’s still too cold, and I have allergies, dammit. 

Can't complain about the view from the back of my apartment complex. Not bad for WhiteTrashville, eh?

Connected Again

Lent is over, and I’m back on Facebook.  That’s good and bad.  On one hand, I can see that it’s still easy for Facebook to be a distraction and time-waster.  And for the time being, I’m doing pretty well at avoiding that outcome.  But it’s still early.

On the other hand, there’s no doubt that Facebook is the best way for me to keep in touch with my outer circle of friends.  It’s a very handy tool for maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with hundreds of people.  I have my car, which takes me to face-to-face encounters with the people I’m closest to; my phone, which connects me to the people who may be physically distant; and Facebook, which connects me to friends and acquaintances who may be distant in multiple ways, but with whom I’d hate to cut off all contact and lose touch. 

When it’s used as that type of communication tool, Facebook is great.  When it becomes a trivia-lover’s distraction, or when idly browsing the news feed becomes a way to avoid checking important items off of a weekly to-do list, it’s not.  But I can really only blame myself if I’m easily distracted.  At any rate, it’s good to be connected again. 

Ants: An Update

My apologies for leaving my readers—both of you—hanging in regards to the ant situation I wrote about last week.  Please accept this update as my way of making it up to you.

As I stated before, I left the ants to their own devices last weekend, with nothing more than a little goo-filled trap keeping them at bay.  So I was a little worried that I’d return on Monday to find my desk carried off somewhere and my hidden snacks devoured.  But alas, I was to be disappointed.  Or rather, relieved.  A few ants still crawled around here and there along the floor and walls, but the trap didn’t look like it had caught anybody new, and my desk and snacks were well intact.

I continued smooshing the wanderers who dared to venture into the open throughout the day, until I saw Jim, the elusive maintenance man.  I showed Jim the goo trap, which was spotted like a Dalmatian, with about 40 dead ants inside.  He was impressed by the number of ants my trap had ensnared, but I scoffed.  “You should have seen the first one. It was so full I had to throw it out,” I said.  “And I’ve been smooshing a bunch more along the walls and floors.”  I inquired as to whether he had an easier, more effective way of killing the bugs, and was quickly supplied with a spray bottle of poison. 

I set to work hosing down every little crack and crease along the floor, walls, and window frame.  When the fumes began to overwhelm me, I opened the window.  Soon, ants were dying and I didn’t even have to lift a finger.  Which was good, because my fingers already had a lot of ant guts on them. 

The poison continued to work its magic throughout the week (it’s supposed to be effective for up to 12 months), and I only had to get my fingers dirty a couple more times.  On Friday, I decided to do a little spring cleaning and get the poisoned and crushed ants off the walls and window sill.  By the time I left at the end of the week, nothing in my office was crawling.  But, having spent most of my life in bedrooms and apartments that sit below ground level, like my office does, I’m sure it won’t be long before we again have visitors. 

One More Week: Final Analysis

So here we are in April.  Lent isn’t over for another week, and I’ve already gone 40 days without using Facebook because I didn’t realize that Catholics are cheaters.  As I found out midway through this wonderful season of denial, there are actually 47 days between Fat Tuesday and Easter Sunday.  But Lent is only considered to be 40 days long, because, when “fasting” for Lent, one is permitted to take a break every Sunday.  Like I said, Catholics are cheaters.

But that’s understandable.  If I were fasting for real, it would be nice to have food in my belly at least once a week.  It might even prevent disagreeable side effects like malnutrition or death.  Hoewever, there’s no reason to break the fast for something silly like checking to see what my sister’s cat is up to this evening (I can just text her to find that out, after all).  So, I’ve decided to stay strong in my convictions and resist the urge to use Facebook until Lent is officially over. 

I’ll admit there have been times when I’ve wanted to check my news feed.  And while denying myself the use of one non-vital website/communication tool hasn’t been terribly difficult, it has been a tad trying at times.  I still feel like I’m missing something when I only check my email and nothing else.  “That seemed too quick,” I say.  I occasionally have the urge to simply browse my news feed and see if anybody I know has posted anything interesting.  But I can’t.  Now and again I’ve also felt disconnected from my acquaintances and, to a degree, from the world around me.  But because I know I’m going to start using Facebook again soon, I haven’t developed new channels of communication to replace it.  I haven’t started reading the newspaper again, or called old friends, or thrown myself headlong into Twitter like I could have (though I have enjoyed getting to know Twitter better). 

It’s almost like, if I really want to get something meaningful out of this whole experience, I should do those things, and I should keep my Facebook account suspended for the rest of the year.  But on the other hand, it has made me think and examine some things.  For instance, as I write about my use of Facebook now, I realize that I—and probably most other people too—value communication of information that isn’t necessarily vital to us.  Sure, we all value a one-on-one discussion with our closest friends.  But—and this has become more apparent in the “information age”—we absolutely love trivia.  We don’t need to know that our friend who we haven’t spoken to in years is having a baby.  Or that something is upsetting the Kardashian sisters.  But that sort of stuff is fun to know.  And we’ll spend all sorts of time and energy learning about those types of things because they’re entertaining.  And they keep us “in the loop” with what our friends are talking about, meaning they could come up in conversation, when we’re actually having meaningful interactions with other people.

But that’s enough about that.  In the end, this was a fun little experiment, and I’m happy with the fact that, for a little while at least, it got me away from something that was wasting my time, and gave me something to write a few blogs about, and showed me that I can in fact succeed at this whole Lent thing, without cheating.  Unless of course I give in between now and next Sunday.

PS – Recommended reading: Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. Written for the TV Age, it applies even more so to the Internet Age. 

Invasion!

I sat on the toilet at work today, staring at the little speckled design painted on the linoleum floor.  The specks began to shift and roam in seemingly random directions.  I blinked and they stood still, back in their original positions.  I have the office ant colony to thank for this visual phenomenon. 

Jim, our maintenance guy, had noticed a few ants in the kitchen last week and set up a couple of traps, the kind with a clear goo inside that the little buggers get stuck in.  As of this morning, those traps had only caught one or two ants each.  But I was squishing about a dozen of the bastards on my office floor every day.  So finally, after going on a mini rampage this morning, wiping out 10 or 15 of the little twerps, I stole one of the traps from the kitchen.  I found a huddled mass of probably 20 or 30 ants under the corner of the rug below my desk, and placed the trap near them.  Then I went about my work and soon took a break for lunch.  When I came back from lunch, less than two hours after setting the trap, it had gone from clear to black. 

There had to have been 60 or 70 ants inside that one-by-three-inch trap.  Some were still alive, near the entrance, just beginning to explore this new contraption placed before them.  But most were dead, floating in the goo.  When I lifted the corner of the rug, there were yet another 40 or 50 of the little critters milling around, no doubt trying to figure out where that delicious sugary smell was coming from. 

I tossed the full trap, its black coat rippling, into the garbage can.  I knew we didn’t have any spray poison, so I grabbed some floor cleaner from under the kitchen sink and gave the remaining ants a good spritzing.  Then, while they were trapped and drowning in the liquid, I came through with a wad of paper towels and finished the job.  When I was done, there were no ants left. 

I cleaned up, took out the trash, and when I sat back down a few minutes later, a couple of ants had reappeared.  I tried to go back to work, but every few minutes I would look down and see trios or quartets of them fanning out across the floor.  I peeked under the rug again and found a new batch—maybe 20 of them—amassing near the seam at the bottom of the wall. 

I stole the second trap from the kitchen.  It had a mere two dead ants in it.  Throughout the rest of the afternoon, I kept an eye on the trap as it filled up.  The ants seemed to approach its entrance, peer in at the growing crowd inside, and say to each other, “Damn. Must be a party. Smells like they’ve got some sweet grub too. You wanna check it out?”  “Yeah, dude. Looks pretty fun.  I need a break, the queen’s really been crackin’ the whip lately. Check out all these guys, passed out near the door! This must be one helluva party! Woo!”  Then, dead.

Still, not every ant could be lured in.  Every 30 minutes or so, until quitting time, I went around squishing 8 or 10 little guys who happened to be scattered across the floor, roaming aimlessly.  But wherever I would kill one, another would always seem to take its place just a few minutes later.  By the time I left, their numbers appeared to be dwindling, but they weren't gone completely.  And now the ants have the office to themselves for the weekend, with the freedom to wander or join the party. 

My new #drug?

It’s funny how, as humans, whenever we quit one habit we almost inevitably replace it with another.  Quit drinking and start smoking.  Quit smoking and start putting food to your lips instead of cigarettes.  And in my case, quit wasting time on Facebook and start tweeting your brains out.

In my defense, though, my newfound Twitter addiction—er, fascination (addiction is a bit strong)—was enabled by one of my co-workers quitting his job and a nonprofit organization's controversial social media campaign. 

For the first week or so of Lent, I was happily plodding along without Facebook or any other form of social media mucking up my free time.  Then, on two days’ notice, the guy who used to take care of all our organization’s social media needs left to join a marketing firm that wanted him to start his new job post-haste (for which I cannot blame them; he does good work).  That left me and a fellow employee to pick up the slack by Facebooking and tweeting.  Naturally, my cohort filled the Facebook position while I took the wheel of the Twitter bus. 

That was two weeks ago, and since then Twitter has captured my interest and wasted my time like no website since, well, Facebook.  Or maybe Sporcle.  OK, yeah, Sporcle. 

When I first started using Twitter a couple of years ago, it didn’t hold much of an allure for me.  Hardly any of my friends and acquaintances were using it, and the 140-character updates (almost always with misspellings and textese abbreviations like “lol” and “smh”) left me shaking my head, wanting more. 

Now it’s different.  I still don’t really care to use my own Twitter account, because very few of my friends tweet, and I haven’t taken the time to follow a bunch of people who might be interesting to read about.  But using my organization’s Twitter account is fascinating.  We follow all sorts of interesting people, and all sorts follow us.  Plus, I can have fun coming up with clever little 140-character advertisements for our website, which might actually get people to click, and therefore become involved with our organization.  Social media have become viable forms of marketing, as many companies have proved in recent times.

The most recent, and probably most poignant, proof of that came last week, in Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign, which, in addition to riling me up for a variety of reasons, kept my attention riveted on Twitter.  But that’s another story, for next time. 

By the way, these are some of the images that come up when you search Google for "twitter needs you."

This was here.

This was here.

And finally, my favorite. From here.

Status Update

I saw a great Facebook profile photo a while back.  No, I wasn’t on Facebook.  In fact, I haven’t logged on since Fat Tuesday, nearly three weeks ago.  And I don’t really miss it.  The longer I go without it, the easier it is to avoid it and not care about logging on.  But I digress.  This photo I saw showed up on a Google image search, I believe.  I don’t recall what I was looking for, but for some reason this photo showed up.  It was a Flash graphic that read, “You don’t need Facebook,” at first, and then changed to, “Facebook needs you.”  I’ll attach it below if I can find it.* 

It’s a nice little adage, or protest, but the sad fact is, I still feel like I do need Facebook.  Yes, Facebook needs me and other people to use it in order for it to be worth anything.  And if everyone stopped using Facebook, Facebook would be obsolete.  But the truth is, Facebook is actually quite a handy little communication tool.  According to this, nearly 156 million people in the U.S. alone communicate via Facebook.  So inevitably, by not using it, I’m being left out of some things.  And I’m leaving my friends and acquaintances out of some things too. 

For instance, how am I supposed to let people know that I’ve just posted a new blog entry?  I could call, text, or email a bunch of people and attach a link to this page.  Or I could post the link on Facebook.  Obviously the second option is the simpler of the two.  But now, without access to Facebook, I’ll just have to post this and hope my friends and family will check my blog and find this.  No, I’m not going to email everyone with a link.

Similarly, if one of my friends on Facebook posts an interesting link, I’ll have to hope they did the same on Twitter, which only a small fraction of my Facebook friends use.  More importantly, if one of my friends is hosting a social gathering (in real life), it’s not likely I’ll find out about it.  Most of my friends send party or event invitations via Facebook, not email or text.  Although, right now I am thankful for the ones who text.

So, even though Facebook’s existence depends more on its users than its users’ existence depends on Facebook, its overwhelming popularity has made it a ubiquitous communication tool.  I’ll survive just fine without it, but there’s no doubt I’ll be just a little bit out of the loop until I start using it again.

*PS: I couldn't find it.  Maybe I didn't see it on a Google search, but just imagined it in a dream.  Anyway, here are a couple of other fun pictures.  I found the first one here. 

I'm including this one just because it cracked me up.

This one was on this web page. 

And finally, here's another one that made me laugh.

Summer is at least getting closer

I readily and wholeheartedly admit that the Pacific Northwest has some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen in all my travels.  But I still wish it wasn’t so damn cold for so much of the year.  It’s the last day of February, and aside from a brief work trip to the Caribbean last November, I’ve been bundled up, with the heat on, for the last four and a half months. Only three and a half more to go. 

Sure, it could be worse.  I could have been raised in Alaska and still living there.  The views might be stunning way up there, but the cold would be even more bitter.

With that said, I know living here in Western Washington isn’t all bad.  The clear days don’t happen all too often, but when they do, we’ve got it made.  I’ll keep that in mind as I wrap a few more sweaters around myself and dream of the approaching summer.  Because in my mind, summer is always approaching, even when it’s the middle of winter. 

The end of last summer. 111 days until the next one.

40 Days Without Facebook

I’ve managed to avoid Facebook for a little over a day so far.  Only 39 more to go.  I haven’t broken out into night sweats or seen dead babies crawling across my ceiling just yet, but I was feeling dizzy and lightheaded today.  Why does it seem like good health is always so fleeting?  Maybe I really do need to get back to running.  And lay off the ramen.  At any rate, the health issue probably had more to do with diet or blood sugar (and hopefully nothing more serious) than with Facebook, which is what we’re here to talk about. 

I don’t normally bother observing Lent, but I thought it would be interesting to try this year.  A couple of weeks ago, I was at work, on Facebook, which I’m allowed to do a little bit for gathering work-related info and the like.  But while I was on there, I realized how easily I get distracted and begin perusing my news feed and just plain wasting time.  Working at a computer all day, it’s so easy to just click on over to Facebook anytime there’s a lull.  I thought about this and looked over at my calendar on the wall next to my desk, to see when Ash Wednesday was.  “Hmm,” I thought. “Maybe that would be good for me.”

So here we are, 26-ish hours in and going strong.  I’ve gone for long periods without using Facebook before, but only when I’ve been out of the country or busy and away from a computer.  I think, for the first few days, it will be tough to avoid checking up on my friends via Facebook.  In addition to being a huge distraction from real productivity, it’s also such a great communication tool.  It’s a one-stop shop for sending and receiving messages and party invitations, and for keeping in touch with my outer circles of friends, who I don’t see on a regular basis.  It even keeps me up to date on some of the goings-on with inner-circle friends when we don't make the effort to call each other. 

I’m sure I’ll feel out of the loop for a little while, but I’ll get used to using my phone and email as my main communication tools.  I bet I’ll even feel relieved to not have Facebook as a constant distraction or one more thing that I have to keep up with.  Sort of like the peaceful feeling I get when I turn my phone off when I’m out of the country. 

And even though my only other attempt at observing Lent failed within two and a half weeks (I couldn’t last very long without soda pop; I just get these cravings), I feel better about this one.  It’ll just take some getting used to.  And it’s a little disappointing that no one will read my blog during this time, since Facebook is by far the best place to set up links pointing my friends and family here.  I mean, it's not like anyone ever checks this blog on their own.  And I'm certainly not going to email links to everyone I know.  I guess I’ll just have to tweet this.