ohmygosh

ok so i am not exaggerating. i never do. i just happen to have a lot of stories, and the past few days i have been a total freak magnet, as my friend bk likes to say.

i have one story from this past saturday that is SO unbelievable to share, (something i witnessed while on a run that you cannot even guess... and seriously... you really cannot even guess). my other story is happening right before my eyes....

i am at logan airport (free wifi - hollaaa), and i am certain i am witnessing a real life oedipus complex. i had only learned about this in sociology, and i apologize if anyone is offended that i am writing about this, (as it's happening in front of my face), but there is a serious Oedipus Complex, or perhaps something worse, going down across from where i am sitting at this gate.

this son has to be about 15ish. glasses, braces, pretty nerdy. he and his mom are all over each other, and yes, i have heard him call her "mom". they are playing eye-spy. (of note: i believe one of the objects was the pink ponytail holder around my wrist... yes, that's how close i am sitting near them). they are cooing, ooohing and cuddling. he is petting her head, his face was in her lap at one point. this is so inappropriate.

i gotta go now. we're boarding.
totally grossed out,
cw

there was no stopping it.

today i was in a meeting. i was asked to be in this formal gathering of selected employees at my company to talk openly and freely about running. what it means to us, our relationship with it, what we measure ourselves by. the discussion was good, insightful for those asking the questions, and just cool to hear some of my colleagues thoughts and experiences with the whole thing. i like knowing people better.

around 11:47(ish)... i totally lost it.

in the hilarious sort of way.

as in, could NOT keep it together.

you see we were asked to share in a few sentences,  "what makes a good run", and among the answers.... 

someone very seriously mentioned "to get digestive issues going if you're backed up."

i proceeded to lose it. i was trying to think of really sad things to get a hold of myself. the worst part was it was silent; so i was looking down, trying to hide it but probably not. i would think i recovered and then, then like a wave that catches you off guard it would come over me, and there i went again, fighting to keep it in my throat, squeezing my hands into my thighs, (because yeah that helps?), and looking down at my red seychelles shoes.

so this silent, uncontrollable laughter  equated to about a 15 minute ab workout.

the good news is, the discussion was video taped.

so the one chick in the group with the ponytail and the tears rolling down her face.

yepp, that's all recorded.

xo,

cw

pirates booty.

i've admittedly been a bit lazy with the ole blog updating these days. i feel like every time i check in here i am mentioning how much of a whirlwind things have been, how work is crazy and how things have just never settled down. truth is, that's the truth. i choose to fill my days on top of this with running or bikram, friends, and dinners. also a truth, after nearly a year (a year? whoa) of blogging, i still am not using proper punctuation and capitalization, preferring the grammatically incorrect route paired with a lower case theme.. i also still flit from subject to subject, sometimes spilling personal beans, other times sharing musings and curb your enthusiasm type situations of my daily life. i will probably stick with that, as an fyi to my followers and secret readers. [if there's any out there].


so when deciding what to write about i decided to try to give a little snapshot + catchup + rambling little entry. sometimes when i have been out of touch with a good friend who understand what its like to be out of touch - well we write emails in list form, with bullets not required to have a thing to do with one another so we can catch each other up

• i saw The National with Kay Miller a little over a week ago and they were UN-to-the-REAL. i decided not to blog about it because i really just wasn't up for trying to sum up how amazing the show was (as usual), and how intensely i watch matt berninger perform. i think about where he gets his words, and i am so sure its from a history of drugs, finding God, losing God, heartbreak, love, fighting for love, and doing it all over again. i love watching the Dessner twins go solo on their guitars, facing each other from across the stage and you just know they not only lived in the womb together but grew up doing this together and now its all real. they are so unbelievably talented and raw and i cannot find the right words in my brain to come out through the tips of my fingers to explain how this band just fires me up while simultaneously embedding themselves into little coves in my heart to stay for me to remember and apply to places in time my life will find itself in. (C'est la vi)

• Apartment situation. i found a one-bedroom just around the corner from where i live now. i move into this total gem in about a month and couldn't be more excited. i am sure i'll have 1 or 2 near-meltdowns on how much money i need to spend and time i'll need to invest to furnish the place to my liking, but i am soooo excited and ready to add the soul of cw to the walls and the overall living experience. tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen of my current place, (i live with the homeowner), is a little pot holder my aunt gave me that says, Chatteu De La Claire. i'm going to hang that little potholder up in my new [ beautiful no exaggeration ] kitchen to remind me that it is mine. and maybe... per my mom's wish every year, i'll finally learn how to cook, (as she rolls her head back in embarrassment that of the three girls, the first three years older, the twins three minutes apart.... that three didn't learn to cook, but two. for a certain one of them left the nest with zero skills.... whoopsies....).

• My running, ah yes my running. i like to stay a little tight lipped on this one. it's kept to myself mostly, and only i really know the deets. i don't want to jinx myself, but.... my daddy calve (name for my left calve as its quite overdeveloped from a whole strength imbalance), is experiencing noticeable improvement. Regular A.R.T appointments, about $160/week not covered by insurance and some hot little pink kinesio tape has me getting excited that maybe one day i can look forward to that rigging feeling at the end of a 5k or dying on a tempo on the charles because my leg can handle it now. its been a long road, i'm not out of it, but thanks to this soft tissue expert who deserves every penny she's getting, bikram yoga, and just taking some deep breaths.... that scar tissue is going through a crazy break up, and i'd like to hope pretty soon we'll be parting ways, as this few-year-long relationsihp between Mr. Scar Tissue and Miss CW left calf/soleus/impinged piriformis will soon be dunzo.
  [ k n o c k o n w o o d ].

•  nyc. i am on the acela as i type this. my head is is too tired and my eye lids too heavy to do the slides i need to do for my boss by the time he lands in europe tomorrow morning. i was here to engage our designers in some great round table discussion on spikes with a group of our professional runners. we then watched a premier level track meet and as usual i got completely fired up. though i don't work "this side" of the industry per say, i enjoy the fact that i am counted on to fill the shoes when the real experts here have to be on the west coast for other things. i also love it that our marquee athlete looks at me as big sister like, begging me to come to her room at 2AM to finish a conversation because, "its really only midnight in boulder claire." i love seeing a 23 yr old who is challenging the heights of american women middle distance running, and watching her soar with such class and such a sturdy head on her shoulders, (but not without the hysterical occurrences filling her days that are freakishly similar to mine).

• nyc part duex. i don't think i could ever live here. but i love it that my identical twin sister can and does. i love it that the park never gets old to run in, whether an easy 4 miler on friday or a hard 10 miler i forced myself to do saturday after staying in the official athlete hotel and feeling lame.. i love seeing my sister sound better, laugh harder, look hotter (ow owwww), in this fabulous city of nyc. i also love that despite parting ways for separate colleges in 2000, her playing lacrosse, me all runner girl.... that despite the different tastes in fashion, books, boys (ok fine men), and opinions on life..... despite all this, we find out we both inhaled a giant bag of pirates booty thursday evening en route from work to home, only to sit down and have a real dinner. the difference - em threw it away admitting she almost was trying to get rid of the evidence and i looked at the amount of calories i consumed with record speed, justifying it as "air" and proceeding to eat my real food. 

life is good.
xo's from the first train ride where i wished i was on the quiet car,
cw

oh we're so disarming darling, everything we did believe

i am soooo flippin pumped because i'll be seeing The National for the fourth time tonight. i have been lucky to catch them twice in Seattle and i'm headed to my 2nd show in Boston in about 1 hour. i love them. i love their words. i love the way they think and then share it with all of us.

if you don't know them, get to know them. i'm digging their latest album High Violet (with The Runaway and Lemonworld my top two favs...), but I have a permanent place in my heart for many of their older songs, and i'll choose to make mention of Green Gloves, which I convinced myself one of the Dessner brothers watched my lips request as they came out for their encore last spring. we made eye contact. i swear.

sidenote: it's nights like this i sort of feel like Penny Lane... a true Bandaid.

xo,

cw