Runner's high

Hey! It hasn't even been a full month yet since my last entry. I'm improving!

So from the title of this entry, you can guess that I'm getting back to running. It's always fun (ahem) getting back into the rhythm of running. Or jogging. Or whatever it is that I manage to do. To me, it's running. My heart pounds for the first few minutes, until I settle into the groove. Then it seems to calm down and I'm good to go until either my blood sugar plummets or I near my daily goal (which, in turn, always raises my heart rate b/c I get so focused on The End that I can't help myself — thump thump thumpity thump).

So my new running issue is what I am self-diagnosing as hip bursitis. Pre-babies, I had IT band pain on the right knee. I've either changed physically since the birth of my two girls or learned how to properly stretch. So far, the IT band is sufficiently pliable. My hips are another story. A co-worker suggested that my hips hurt because the pregnancies drained my bones of precious calcium to make the beautiful babies. I haven't researched it enough to know if that is true or possible. But I do know that these hips never hurt like they do now. An ache, really, not a shooting pain. "They" say that shooting pain is something to address immediately. Aches are usually not as dramatic or as attention-grabbing. So, I have aches, directly on and to the rear of the hip bone — the one that juts out, or did about 15 pounds ago. I did a tiny bit of Internet research today, and there's apparently not much I can do besides avoiding running (not my favorite option) or swigging some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. My hope is that I will research more tomorrow and figure out that it's not hip bursitis, but something else that has an easy, pain-free remedy.

I'm also thinking that I need new shoes. Maybe I just don't have enough padding for these old bones. When I first started running (1998?), I bought some shoes that I thought were good. I kept getting blisters, but I told myself that I just needed to toughen up. But the blisters kept coming, for months. Finally, I went to a proper running store (First Gear in Wichita) and they told me that those shoes were too wide for me. They wanted to put me in New Balance. Back then, NB was a new brand, at least to me, and the particular pair they put in front of me looked like clown shoes. I laughed and surely ticked off the sales guy. But I finally tried them on and OMG — it felt as if I had just stepped into two perfectly fitting bowls filled with marshmallows. FANTASTIC. Clown shoes be damned, I bought those suckers and wore them to nubs. Then I bought a second pair. And then a third. Then I got bored and bought some Nikes, which is what I have now. They are OK, but they are no bowls of marshmallows.

I am going back to NB.

What else? Mileage. At my best, back in 2002, I was running six miles consistently, around nine-minute miles. That's not too bad for me, standing at 5'3". Yes, there are those shorter and older who could whiz by me while pushing a stroller. I didn't care. Well, I did, but not enough to bitch about it. Because I was doing well for me.

That was six years, one husband, two kids and three cities ago. So as soon as I got married, I basically quit running. We tried running together after our honeymoon, but after taking a few weeks off and then moving to the rolling hills of Olathe, we found other things to do.

So now, six years later, I'm getting back to it and happy to be able to call myself a runner again. Although I'm just tolerating a three-mile run at the moment. My goal is to hit four miles consistently. If I can do that, I will be a happy camper. I'd love to be able to claim six miles again, but four is enough. Really.

So wish me luck. And healthy hips.

Happy trails!

Nothing serious

OK, so it's been several months since my last post. I realize that haphazard postings are not a good MO for driving traffic to a blog. Gonna try to remedy that. So here are a few things I've been thinking/doing lately.

I may be jumping the gun a little, as it's only October 1 today and Halloween is still a full month away, but I have both girls' costumes in-house. Miss Molly, who adores her Rainbow Rob penguin book and will flip through the hard pages 17 times if you'll let her, is going to be a penguin. Freaking adorable. I'm just counting on the fact that she won't grow 4 inches in the next month and pop the stitching.

Miss Abby's costume arrived yesterday from oldnavy.com. She is going to be a monkey, with a banana in tow. Since she's obviously getting older, I figured that this is the last year I get to choose the costume; princesses and the like are coming, I'm pretty sure of it. But this year, I would like her to be a cute, fuzzy, cozy-toasty animal. So I found a few costumes online and narrowed them down to the Old Navy monkey and a darling frog costume. The great mom that I am, I asked her opinion. She said monkey. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I asked again, just for verification. Frog. Uh-oh. On Thursday, I asked again, and the emphatic, repeated answer: monkey. Monkey, monkey, MONKEY. Fine. I ordered the monkey.

The weekend rolled around and I asked again, just for giggles. Frog. "Mommy, I want to be a FROG!" Well, hell. Too late, sister. Monkey's already on the truck. And "frog" was the answer for the next two days. Then Tuesday came around again and the answer switched to monkey. So I'm done asking. Lesson learned.

Next subject: I went to an AdFed (excuse me; it is now known as AAF of Wichita to comply with national preferences — sheesh) presentation yesterday to learn more about social media/interactive marketing. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water at those meetings because the subject matter is often quite far from my normal field of writing/editing; I go to try to learn other aspects of the ad biz. And I'm definitely no social media expert. But it was one of the most interesting/informative/easy-to-follow presentations I've heard. I'm relatively new to Twitter and Facebook. (Though I've formed an opinion about Facebook vs. MySpace: MySpace is a pain the you-know. You have to scroll like crazy to get anywhere and it's just plain messy. Bleh.) However, I'm in the process of starting a grammar/writing/editing blog at work that should have new posts several times a week (that's the plan, anyway). I'm also going to start a podcast with the other copywriter at work about grammar/writing/editing/top-of-mind matters. And I'm going to be more diligent about posting to this blog. Phew.

Some of my friends think I'm very tech-savvy. Some think I don't know squat. Depending on the hour, I agree with one or the other. I suppose it's all relative. But it's all interesting and keeps me young. That, and running. Gotta get back to consistent running.

It was also groovy that I knew the speaker at AAF. Mark Logan went to my high school and had a younger brother in my class (who, btw, I just reconnected with on Facebook after two decades — that demonstrates the reach of social networking). Mark looked great, exactly as I remember him — no kidding. And he was well-spoken and knew his stuff. And now we're Twitter buds. You just never know who you'll reconnect with in life, so remember to not burn your bridges, no matter how fun and appropriate it might seem!

So enough preaching. I'll just add this: Try Twitter. It seemed completely inane to me at first, but I'm addicted. Same with Facebook. And yoga. And chocolate. And iced tea.

Until next time, happy trails!

NYC, baby!

Our trip to the Big City has come and gone. J and I went to New York City for a vacation, our first without the girly-girls. That was hard, leaving them, but we knew that we wouldn't get another chance to be alone, doing grown-up things, for a very long time, so we went for it.

What a town! NYC is as good as it's ever been, in my opinion, and this was J's first time there. He, we, had a ball. We walked from 45th St. to 4th St., stopping at Pete's Tavern for a drink in the oldest continuously running bar (and saw a horse race on TV), then had dinner with some friends at an Italian joint down in the Village. We walked through Central Park on our way to a Yankees vs. Royals game at Yankee Stadium, the 49th last game before the stadium is torn down in favor of a newer, albeit cool, stadium right next door. That stadium is STEEP and I got all tingly several times trying to wedge down the aisle to our near-nosebleed seats. Great view, just steep. We then meandered over to Lincoln Center, just in time to see some famous folks arrive for the James Beard Foundation awards (cooking), most notably Kim Cattrall, Bobby Flay, Ted Allen of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame and Katie Lee Joel. Then we had fondue at a cheese and wine bistro, walked around Soho/Tribeca/Greenwich Village, enjoyed lunch with two friends at a tasty cash-only eatery, had a private showing of Al Hirschfeld's work at Margo Feiden's home, saw the construction zone otherwise known as Ground Zero and had a drink at the White Horse Tavern (where Dylan Thomas purportedly had his last drink before going home and collapsing). We saw the city from the top of the Empire State Building (yes, you might think it's cheeseball, but it's a damned fine view and it's best to go up at the end of a trip so you know what you're looking at), had several Starbucks encounters (how come I only go to Starbucks while on vacation???), bought some fun stuff for the girly-girls and watched Woody Allen play clarinet with the Eddy Davis Band at Cafe Carlyle for the last show of the season. Wow. Now that was a cool night. And the most expensive either of us has ever experienced. We sat RIGHT next to the band (Eddy Davis on banjo) and I had a great profile view of Woody. And he of me, really, b/c after every song, he'd consult with Eddy about what to play next, and I could see his eyes shifting from Eddy to me and back again. Those eyes, through the dark-rimmed glasses that he is known for, looked at me several times. So naturally, I am waiting for my phone call that alerts me that Woody would like me to be in his next movie. Ha. Would that it were true. Then it was last-minute souvenir shopping and a cab ride back to LaGuardia. I get wistful just thinking about it.

There's our holiday in a nutshell. I asked J, if we had enough money to live there, would he be willing. Yes. Yes, he would. And that's just another in a long line of reasons why I love him. Now the question is, how the heck do we get that kind of cash?

Random notions

No lengthy blogging today, folks. Just brief observations/thoughts/ponderings.

I went to lunch with my husband today. We ate at a local Vietnamese restaurant that gets you in and out before you have time to get stuck to the vinyl seats. The food rocks. We paid and got our fortune cookies; mine was: You will be unusually successful in an entertainment career. Now, something you may or may not know about me: I have a theatre degree and went to Hollywood in the wee '90s to make it big. Only I never tried. Well, twice. I auditioned two times — got a callback for the one and walked out of the other. I had a great time in L.A. but just didn't put myself out there for the rejection, which is a huge part of acting. And now I'm living in Kansas and working as a writer/editor (and loving it) and am a wife and a mother of two fabulous girly-girls. So I tell my husband that we should pack up and move back to L.A. Fortune cookies are never wrong, correct? Yeah. So we both got a pretty good laugh out of that.

Next tidbit. We're going to get our wills done. Finally. So we better not get hit by the city bus before it's all legal. It's such a depressing thing to do, but we need to get our affairs settled. Two girly-girls need to be looked after, after all. And it'll prove, without a doubt, that we actually are grown-ups. Yikes. Scary-scary.

We're also in the process of fixing up our "master" bathroom. The thing is, there's nothing "master" about it. We're normal-sized folk, and the two of us in there at once taxes the space. But with what we've done to it, at least our view is updated. We didn't want to go the expense of a true renovation, so we've just done cosmetic stuff: new paint, new hardware, medicine cabinet for added storage, new floor (floor installed maybe next week???). The footprint's the same, but the ambiance is much improved. If I can get my act together, I'll post a pic or two when it's done. Of course, I completely forgot to take a "before" photo. Pthth.

What about Easter? Well, it's all about the kids now. Our oldest is 2 1/2 years old and thinks the huge bunny is interesting to look at — from afar. Very afar. But she got into the egg-hunting thing. Our youngest is on the verge of walking, so we had to help her a bit more. And she wasn't that excited by the eggs. But she didn't let the over-6-foot rabbit out of her sight. Fascinated. I tell you this: I NEVER thought girly-girls would be this much fun.

OK, that's enough for now. Especially since I'm probably the only one to read this crud. Ha!

Happy trails!

Edit, schmedit

OK. So it's been a little while since I've posted my first blog. Here I am again, a sucker for learning new technology a beat behind the masses. Let it be noted that I didn't buy my first CD player (and thus my first CD) until a full 10 years after the technology was available b/c I thought for SURE that a newer, smaller form of music capture would make the shiny CD obsolete. I was wrong. Anyway, here I am taking another shot at the blogger thing, several years after blogging hit the Internet mother lode.

So I think I'll ramble about ... editing. That's what I do for a living, here in blustery Wichita, Kan. I work at a smallish but quite groovy ad agency as a copywriter and editor. The editor thing, while secondary on my biz card, is actually my main dealio. I've always had a knack for reading/writing/editing, so when I finally got my master's in English and was looking for a job ("they" say that you can do SO many things with an English degree, but really, who are they fooling?), I landed a proofing job. Not the most glamorous title, let's be brutally honest. I even campaigned to have my title changed. But it paid the proverbial and literal bills and taught me the art of proofreading. Since that first job, I've had a few other gigs that resembled proofing in some fashion. Then I got away from editing for about two months. And now I'm back at it. You know, writing — creating good work — is damned hard work unless you have that special spark. I'd like to think I have that spark, but I'd also like to think I can beautifully decorate a bookshelf (sounds easy enough) and I can't. My point is that writing well takes inspiration as well as perspiration. Editing, though a related animal to writing, is its own beast in my mind. I can look at something and know if it's crap or custard. I can do so because I have plenty of training and experience and find it infinitely easier to edit someone else's creativity than it is to create some of my own. Er, to create something good of my own.

Having this editing thing in my blood, then, makes life a different experience than what the average Joe or Joejette goes through. Take eating out: I would challenge just about any editor to go to a restaurant and read the menu without proofing the blasted thing. Asian restaurants tend to be leading offenders. One local favorite spells "shrimp" this way in several places on the menu: "shirmp." Broccoli often is all cattywompus ("brocolli"). You get the gist. And the local newspaper is a major offender, too. I guess the tight deadlines allow them space for mistakes. Whatever.

But what I think is pretty bad stuff is when magazines goof with misspellings, grammar blips or other issues. And a local mag here just printed a headline with a gross mispelling. A HEADLINE. And the subhead had issues, too. Good grief, folks. Check you work, then get someone else to check your work before it goes to print.

A professor once told me (in the days of Wite-Out — though it still applies) that, when applying for a job, never, ever hand over a resume with a mistake on it. Lots of employers (the ones worth working for) would see a mistake and immediately trash any resume with a goof, no matter how impressive the credentials or experience. I try to take this advice to heart in my work every day. Clients are paying for good creative that is pulled off flawlessly. Not flawlesly. Get it?

Mistakes happen every day across all mediums. But when a goof is in print, it's there for a very long time and is usually impossible to correct or at least quite expensive to correct. And it's my job to catch those mistakes. Now, I'm not claiming to be mistake-free, but I save anyone I work for a lot of embarrassment by catching errors that an underused spell-checking tool would catch and also those "mistakes" that even a computer wouldn't catch.

Gripe, gripe. Moan, moan. I'm done with that for today.

One word thing I suck eggs at is word jumbles. I just took an informal IQ test that had two jumbles, and one I'm pretty sure I botched well up. So don't take me for a word expert. No such thing as an expert, in my book. That's what another professor told me once. But that's for another blog, another day.

Welcome to the Blog World: 1st Post

So this is my first posting. Should be interesting — at least that's my aim. What's a new blogger to write about? What's hip, interesting, new, not been written about before? Who knows? I guess I'll just start writing and see where this road leads.

I suppose that I should address the title of this blog, as well as the URL. If you haven't guessed already, I'm a Doors and Jim Morrison fan. The blog title is a line from the epic song The End, and the URL is from the song Love Street. So ... Driver, where you takin' us? Driver's takin' us on Love Street. It's sort of a stretch, but coming up with an original or ultracool blog title isn't as easy as it might seem. Anyway, my proverbial hat's off to the Doors and, naturally, the Lizard King.

I'll begin with an obviously favorite topic: music. Growing up, music was always in my life, and in a big way. I played piano, dabbled with the flute (before getting quite angry at its output and banging it on the ground), taught myself limited guitar and sang as much as I could. And of course I listened to the radio when the CD was just a poof in some brilliant person's mind. Yes, I've been around to know what 8-track and cassette tapes are. I even held out from buying my first CD for 10 years after they became popular, deeply believing that something smaller/cooler would soon replace the shiny CD. Alas, that was a fruitless wait. My first CD was the Black Crowes. But I digress.

At the ad agency I work at, I sit next to this dude who is completely into music; he plays tunes loud enough for the entire office (or sometimes just a few of us) to enjoy. This environment has revived my new-music interest. I get to listen to a wide, wide variety of stuff, both old and new. And sometimes I get to plant a musical seed in his ear. For example, I introduced him to Michael Hedges, one of my all-time favorite musicians. The completely sucky thing is that Hedges died in a car accident almost a decade ago, so his genius writing and guitar playing can only be experienced via recordings or videos. Such a shame. I was fortunate to see him play live twice at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, Kan. What a flippin' killer show that man could put on — and completely by himself. He played the acoustic guitar like no other. If you read this blog and have yet to experience Michael Hedges, by all means RUN to your nearest computer and check him out. And then buy his CDs. You shan't be disappointed.

Now, I'll share a personal tidbit with you: I'm about to turn 40. Yikes. Many folks who are in my age range are losing or have already lost touch with the new music of the day. Having kids also does the same thing, as free time becomes a huge factor — mainly a missing one. And yes, that has definitely happened to me. In the last several years, the only "new" music I've actively enjoyed is The White Stripes, Split Lip Rayfield and Dave Matthews Band (and DMB's been around for a while). So I guess what I'm getting at is that sitting next to this guy at work, hearing lots of familiar work but also creations of new artists, is reviving my interest in what's groovy now. I still can't stomach most country music and rap, but I'm pretty open to just about anything else. One newer-to-me genre that's sparked my interest is bluegrass. And you can swear up and down and sideways that bluegrass is a close cousin to country, and I'll tell you that you can have lots of relatives and not be a cotton-pickin' thing like a lot of them.

I'm positive that I'll revisit this musical highway again, so for now I'll leave you with a quote from brilliant Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues to ponder:

You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

Happy trails,

Keaton Quinn