Running Away and Running Towards

Posted on February 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

In summer 2010, encouraged by my coworker Teplyn, I did a 10K along the coast at the Rockland, Maine Lobsterfest.  When I signed up for the 10K I had no intention of running it, I was just along for the ride.  I planned to start out running and then end up walking, but once I started running I never stopped.  It was at this run that I realized how exhilarating it was to run in a race.

So when my grad school friend Cat asked if anyone would join her in a half marathon in October 2011, I said sure, why the heck not?  I ran a couple times a week for about 2 miles at a nearby park.  I didn’t have a set running schedule, didn’t do a long run, and didn’t really watch what I ate.  I just embraced the philosophy that the more often I ran, the better off I’d be.

That philosophy paid off pretty well.  Cat and I finished in a little under 3 hours (2 hrs 50 minutes or so if I remember right), and we felt pretty good about that, considering it was our very first half marathon ever.  (Cat was also extra kickass as she’d just given birth to her daughter in March that year.)

Cat continued to train and sign up for half marathons, but I dropped out of running in 2012 for financial reasons.  I’d just moved and started student loan repayments and I had to readjust my finances to find extra money to pay for things that weren’t bills.  Even though I was a half-marathon drop out for all of last year, Cat asked me about joining her in the OC half marathon this May.  This time around I could afford to sign up for a half again, so I jumped right on board.

Cat created a modified half training schedule, based on a recommend training program she did for the Tinkerbell half marathon.  Last week was week one of training and so far so good!  The general philosophy of the plan is to run three times a week – two times on weekdays for 30 minutes each day, and then a longer untimed distance run once on the weekend.  It’s a totally doable sounding plan so I’m giving it a shot.

Last week I missed the first 30 minute run, but I did the second one and did a 5.5 mile run on the weekend.  Now on to week #2!  I take a modern dance class on Saturday mornings, and I’m going to incorporate the stretching and warm up exercises from that class into my non-running weekdays.  So this week looks like:

Monday: stretch and dance warm ups

Tuesday: 30 minute run

Wednesday: stretch and dance warm ups

Thursday: 30 minute run

Friday: rest

Saturday: sadly no dance class this week as I’m going on an all day Mojave desert adventure

Sunday: 3-4 mile run (untimed)

I’m approaching this half marathon more seriously and aiming to get the finish time down to 2 hours 30 minutes or less.  Next up: running nutrition!  I’m doing a little research and crafting a meal game plan that I’ll share in another post.

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Looming Deadlines? Zoo Time.

Posted on February 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’m a lucky duck and can get into the LA Zoo for free since I work across the street.  Yesterday was sort of a rough-impending-deadline day, so I decided that the perfect stress release was a stroll around the zoo in the warm sun to say hey to the animals.

When I go to the zoo at lunch I almost always take a peek at the meerkats and the koalas and wallabies.  They’re all near the front of the park and fit into that small and fuzzy animal category that I appreciate (To give you some perspective, squirrels are one of my favorite animals.  Sure, they can be awfully pesky, but they are mostly awfully adorable to me).

The koalas are always sleeping in the afternoon, but they’re still fun to aww www at.  I spotted two in the trees, including this fuzzy guy (or gal).

Koala at the LA Zoo

Koala at the LA Zoo

Below the koalas the wallabies hang out in the enclosure’s floor space.  While I was checking them out a squirrel jumped into the enclosure and zig-zagged across it, heading straight for the wallaby food bowl.  The squirrel jumped right in and started chowing down.  The two wallabies nearby didn’t seem to care.  I found it amusing that I was there to see koalas and wallabies and ended up spending more time watching the squirrel.

Squirrel is in the food bowl, but the wallaby in the background could care less. (Are wallabies related to honey badgers?)

Squirrel is in the food bowl, but the wallaby in the background could care less. (Are wallabies related to honey badgers?)

Also, this meerkat says hi:

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“Hi”

There are probably some complex pro and con arguments that can be made about zoos, but I was just happy to catch some Vitamin D from the sun and get out of my cubical enclosure across the street.

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Cocktail versus exercise smackdown.

Posted on February 1, 2013 | Leave a comment
arthritiusdrinking

Magical juxtaposition in a screen grab.

So, I think the Arthritis Foundation is telling me I should go to the gym instead of making this cocktail.

What won out?  Well, I’ve got text to finish for an online exhibit, so a lighter inspired-by cocktail won out.  (And maybe I should be slightly insulted the ad seems to be suggesting I’m using booze as medicine?)

Dear body (when I first typed this I accidentally typo’d “Dead body” – gosh universe, slather it on thick why dontcha!?),

Tomorrow I will do more exercise than the 15 minute pilates video.  And even if we still feel sick-ish (I’m still recovering from a cold of epic-ish length), we’ll at least walk around Griffith Park a bit.  Both Saturday and Sunday.

I promise I love you more than I demonstrate,

Mallory

Saying that stuff on the internet makes it real and true.  And for tonight – cheers!

1 shot gin, 1/2 shot triple sec, 1 shot lemon juice, 2 dashes bitters, shaken on the rocks, and then topped off with soda water. Ta-da!

1 shot gin, 1/2 shot triple sec, 1 shot lemon juice, 2 dashes bitters, shaken on the rocks, and then topped off with soda water. Ta-da!

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Blogging is now a glossy magazine

Posted on January 27, 2013 | 2 comments

I started a blog on Blogger in high school.  At the end of high school I swapped over to livejournal after accounts there were open for anyone to register (as opposed to register by invite only).

This year marks my 10 year anniversary of livejournal blogging.  In those ten years the face of blogging has dramatically changed.  Now bloggers promote lifestyles and create content and generate money on their writing.  Back in the day I turned to journaling online as a great creative exercise and stress release.  I made a couple online friends via livejournal.  Blogging was not a way to make money though, and now that it’s shifted I feel a bit lost as part of an earlier generation of bloggers.

Don’t get me wrong, I read several blogs religiously and really enjoy the great photos, stories, projects, and recipes that bloggers share.  It’s just a different culture.  Maybe blogging used to be like a zine, but now it’s like a glossy magazine?

Blogging used to be a primarily anonymous art form.  Nowadays the early stranger danger days of the internet have been replaced by the openness and greater honesty brought about (I think) by Facebook.  Before Facebook I was a username, but now I am my own name.  I’m not sure if the use of real names increases authenticity or just encourages individuals to more strongly brand themselves, but it has led me to a crossroads.

I’ve been revamping my online presence recently by cutting back on Facebook posting, hiding my old Twitter account, turning my old livejournal entries private, and creating a reworked online portfolio website.  Though I’m not sure what I want to do with this blog.

I’d partially like to go back to the old days of blogging, when I’d write about momentary bouts of depression, good days, and off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts.  But I’d also like to publicly claim this blog as my own, and to do that I feel it’d be necessary to more carefully curate the content that makes its way on here.

I think it’s time to say goodbye to purely stream of consciousness blogging/laying down bare words of vunerability, and time to say hello to a professional front and a curtains-open-only-when-appropriate blog.  This doesn’t mean that my blogging will be any less authentic than it was in the past.  Maybe it’ll even mean my posts will increase their depth of focus and thoughtfulness!

At any rate, it’s time to get back into the blogging game, and I think with this decision I can finally feel less frozen on this blog.  Here’s to starting again, even in a new culture (of sorts)!

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Ch-ch-changes

Posted on December 19, 2012 | Leave a comment
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Reflections

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Obama won the 2012 election.

Posted on November 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

One of the things I’ve loved about Boardwalk Empire this season is the storyline about women’s health.  It initially seems a little odd that a show about prohibition and gangsters has a very thoughtful storyline on such a topic.  Really though, the show is about government imposed restrictions and balance of power, and while Nucky Thompson and the others wrestle over power of booze and money, Margaret Thompson wrestles over the power of her own body and sexuality.  Who determines the right to drink alcohol?  Who determines the right to control a woman’s body?

Margaret Sanger is one of my heroes.  She is a complicated figure, as all human beings are, and she is often cast in a negative light for association with the contemporary eugenics movement.  In no way do I endorse eugenics, but I do endorse the personal decision to become pregnant or not become pregnant.  Whatever Sanger’s personal sentiments were on the topic, the battle she fought to champion access to birth control contributed greatly to today’s commonplace access.

However, things as they stand aren’t all peachy.  If you don’t have health insurance birth control is very expensive.  It’s not like going to the drugstore and buying aspirin.  Continuing birth control requires costly exams with doctors.

Thankfully there is Planned Parenthood to fill in gaps in insurance coverage and ensure that women of all walks of life are guaranteed access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other health services (I went for a UTI a few years ago when I was between jobs and hadn’t yet gotten my COBRA coverage confirmation.  It was terrible timing.  As anyone who’s ever had one before knows, UTIs don’t wait for insurance paperwork to clear!)

So when Obama won the 2012 election this evening, I sighed a giant breath of relief.  Though I’ve had continuous insurance coverage (once paperwork was all pushed to the correct places), I am relieved to know that Planned Parenthood will continue to be there for my uninsured friends and me, should we ever need their help.

Over 200 years after Abigail Adams insisted that women be remembered in the shaping of the new nation, in this country still largely run by men, it is still far too easy to forget that ladies are people who deserve respect.  However, I believe Obama views the United States as a nation of individuals, rather than a nation of genders, and for this reason I believe in him.

Now let’s spend less time working to reverse the progress of women’s rights advocates in the 20th century, and look to ways we can improve everyone’s health, opportunities, productivity, and contributions to society.

Boardwalk Empire is a great show to watch, but not one I want to have to reenact in my own life.

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So much for this being about my professional life.

Posted on June 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

1. Studying for Archival Certification exam.  Drank a beer and then dropped (too much) money on books (the beer softened the financial blow) for book order part one (it’s like being in college, except you don’t get student loans, instead you are simultaneous trying to pay the undergrad and grad loans back while becoming an employable professional, hah, oh life). I already have a handful of books from grad school and there are a few places around town where I can read the older ones, but nearby libraries don’t have the newer archival books – too expensive and specialized I guess?

2. Nothing makes me feel more feminist than insurance companies and the way they handle birth control in the U.S.  I’ve had four different health insurance companies over the past three years (both PPO and HMO) and none of these companies will let me pick up more than one month’s worth of birth control at a time, even if the doctor’s prescription specifies 3 pack pick up at a time.  Ridiculous.  What am I going to do, OD on hormones?  Give them out to teenage girls with disapproving parents?  All it does is cause me extra hassle and trips to the pharmacy for the same exact number of pills I would get whether or not I picked them up every month or every three months.

My friend who recently returned from studying and living in Germany for two years told her German doctor that she would be without health insurance for a few months once she got back to the U.S.  The doctor prescribed a year’s worth of birth control (like in the U.S.), and then my friend went to the pharmacy and picked up the year’s worth of birth control (not like in the U.S.).  Why can’t it be that simple here?

3. Game of Thrones is over for another season, sigh. But True Blood is coming back next week, hooray!

4. I’ve decided to write a fictional horror western story.  I have some ideas floating around, should be fun.

5. I’m going to Oklahoma and Texas in a few weeks for family time vacation.  I can’t wait for these next weeks to go by.

6. I feel like I’m treading water at work, treading in a sea of newspaper clippings.  I never thought I’d look forward to rehousing sheet music, but I sure am!

7. I’ve become addicted to a 2.5 mile loop at Griffith Park and the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook stairs by Culver City

8. Visited Amir’s Garden in Griffith Park last weekend.  It was lovely!  Sadly I hiked up without a camera.

This is the only recent picture I’ve taken:

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Mr. H made Aloo Gobi from scratch lastlast weekend. It was delicious! This weekend I made blackened chicken again and a chopped salad, but didn’t take pictures. Tonight I discovered how simple it is to jazz up couscous from the bulk bins instead of buying the boxed stuff with the powder flavorings. Winwinwin.

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Random Recent Happenings

Posted on May 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

Lately I have:

Dug into my Mom’s genealogy

Geared up for the return of True Blood!

Workedworkedworked

Family time with boyfriend’s family

Various and sundry adventures and relaxations

Here is some photographic evidence:

Penne pasta with ricotta, almost-carmelized-onions, swiss chard, & mushrooms – topped with parmesean and popped in the broiler.

A not-very-appealing picture of the chicken I made the same night as the pasta – blackened chicken, made with a rub, a jump in a cast iron skillet, and then baking in the oven (though it sort of looks like a chicken was struck by a lightning bolt and then died on the spot – meat is still a wishy washy thing for me, though I can manage to cook raw chicken without feeling ill, so that’s something!)

Beer at one of my favorite places – and the beginnings of a genealogy chart for Mr. H (talk about perfect evening, haha!)

A gallery of items from the past that reflect old interpretations of the future. This is me through a 1980s videophone. The evening was made more exciting by unlimited free cocktails and appetizers (!).

This is me nerding out at the film location Melody Ranch. I went to the Cowboy Festival thanks to a lovely volunteer at work who had tickets to the Fest that she couldn’t use. This is the staircase that the character Nathan from the TV show version of The Magnificent Seven walked on to get to his Dr. office. I loved that show back in the day and still have a soft spot for it.

I’ve started running outside again and it is absolutely the best feeling ever! Now when I don’t run for too many consecutive days my body gets cravings for the exercise. It’s a good feeling to have.

I’m still getting around to taking apartment pictures.  I’ve done a lot of updates/rearranging since I first moved in so I’ll have to do some before and afters.

Mostly tonight I’m really happy to hear that my brother made it back from Afghanistan ok, and is now back in the states!  I think I’ve been nervously holding my breath since he left a year ago, so I’m so very glad to have him back on U.S. soil and out of a volatile area in the Middle East.

 

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Posted on April 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s 2am and I have to get up in a few hours and go to work, but I can’t fall asleep.

I just lay awake in bed thinking about all the things I need to do for my car.  I love the freedom of driving, but not the cost and responsibility of car maintenance.  I need an oil change, new front brake pads, and a plastic splash guard replaced (injury by roaming cardboard box on the 10 freeway).

On a brighter note I’ve had some really great conversations about women’s rights this past weekend with intelligent and thoughtful friends.  Those kind of conversations make me feel more hopeful about the world in the way that news outlets make me feel worse about the world.

My apartment has been coming along nicely, I just need to take some pictures.  I also need to get around to having people over for a potluck or game night or something.

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More soon.

Posted on March 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

I blog once a month for work and also started running the Libraries’ and Archives’ Twitter account.  I’m not sure if that contributes to my procrastinating about recording my life in my own personal blog.

I haven’t been taking as many pictures as usual.  I have a few from recent projects – I need to start uploading and posting those.  Most projects nowadays have to do with decorating my apartment or cooking something.

I made a great tart last weekend (but alas, no pictures!).  It was a mushroom and onion tart for a Game of Thrones watching party.  Lots of tarts and shepherd’s pie type dishes at the potluck.

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