oh, damn

I wish I was one of these people.

"It was over too quick."

"It was nice, but way too short."

"I was way too tired."

People's comments about their holiday could easily be considered some sort of sexual double entendre. But then again, I have been reading a lot of Augusten Burroughs. My brain is tainted.

Anyway, I would agree. Christmas is way too short. This year I took a total of zero pictures, baked no cookies, and didn't play in the snow because there wasn't any on the ground. I didn't even eat too much because I lost my sense of taste thanks to a crippling sinus cold. Don't buy into Cosmo's gimmicks for keeping thin over the holidays (no alcohol at parties... only one mini hotdog a day... instead of cheesecake chew on ice cubes wrapped in salted aluminum foil). Just go into the closest preschool/hospital/mall and pick up a disease instead. You'll be too sick to eat for a week.

Because I can't remember a date to save my life, I missed the annual Christmas Eve fun run. I thought it was supposed to be on Christmas day. Whoops.

But Montana and I did get to go on a long run in the woods on Christmas Eve. The trails were pretty much clear, and the weather decided to be nice for a change. The run would've been great if I hadn't been wheezing and coughing up clods of mucus the whole time. Even though I was hacking like a cat with an intestinal parasite, Montana never dropped me. He wins the good boyfriend award of the day.

The next day, I got some shweet running shwag from the Santa-people in my life. Notably a couple pairs of cool-kid compression tights and one insanely bright sweatshirt, which I promptly threw on and paraded about the house before giving them a good inaugural coating of sweat.

Then on Monday it was back to work, where I got to sell twinkle lights for half off and listen to people complain about how short their Christmasses were.

And now I think I'll go eat some leftover cheesecake if it's not molded over yet.

winter

So. It's taken a couple days to actually realize that I don't have to go back to school for quite some time. In this case, it'll be about two months until I'm off to Hobbit School. What will I be doing in the meantime? Well, I decided to get a job. That's about it.

Without anyone/thing else to distract me, I figured I'd be getting in some mad mileage over the winter.

I went on my first winter-season long run yesterday. It was snowing lightly, and there was a sparkly dusting on the river trail. I looked out down the long, straight path and started running. And running. And running. For the first 5 miles, mile markers and skeleton trees were my only company. I tried listening to Mumford & Sons to make myself feel like a rugged Appalachian wanderer. It didn't work, since the next thing that came on my iPod was Adele.

Then I saw a tiny dark figure on the horizon. When I got closer, I realized it was my friend's dad. I was so thrilled to see another human being that I nearly jumped on his back for companionship. But he "didn't want to slow me down," so he went on ahead without me.

Ughhhh. No team, no friends, not even a dog to talk to. It was a sad, numb-fingered shuffle back to home base.

And now I realize - this is going to be my whole winter. Lonely. It's not even the cool kind of loneliness, like this:

Feh. I'd give anything to be out in the Western wilderness with Clint Eastwood and that horse. Instead I'm stuck running miles and miles alone in cold, dreary Pennsylvania.

But Christmas is roaring up upon us. Maybe the holiday spirit will get me through this hump. I do love seeing Christmas lights and eating Christmas cookies. So I'll probably be hopped up on sugar enough to distract myself from myself.