Carole's Blog

Good Enough

2012-01-31T21:49:00.000-08:00

Years ago when I was in my mid-20's, one day I went up to Santa Barbara (my favorite place)

from my home in Santa Monica. While enjoying the majestic beauty of the impending sunset (my favorite thing) I saw an elderly woman walk out onto the sand.

I expected her to slowly wander along. She walked for a bit, but then her gait picked up and as her creaky body fell into her own timeless rhythm she looked the same as any runner I know. I remember wondering how many miles she had run over her lifetime, how she could run so smoothly over uneven sand without shoes, and how she got so lucky to still be able to run when most of her friends probably needed a cane. That evening, I understood what health meant to me, and knew what I wanted to grow into. Suddenly exercise - but, really health - took on a whole new meaning.

I'm not sure what to call what happened next. I've thought about it a lot over the years. Was it fate? Was it coincidence? Or just sheer luck? I can't be sure...but as I review my life's trajectory, it's hard not to think it was somehow all part of a plan.

Shortly after this revelation with the woman on the beach, I was hired as a high school teacher. The Athletic Director of the high school was Jacqueline Hansen, Boston Marathon winner. I was in awe. I couldn't imagine ever doing a marathon, much less ever winning the damned thing - not to mention winning the biggest mother of 'em all. She was a freak. And a freak in a good way. : )

She and I became fast friends, and this most definitely evolved into a mentoring relationship. "JQ", her nickname, invited me to go run with her one day. Running? I didn't 'run'. Up until that point I don't think I had ever jogged more than 3 miles maybe. I remember I wore high tops (no lie!) and my feet were later swollen with blisters -- I had NO CLUE!! I was big and clumsy, but JQ didn't seem to care. She just bounced along in her petite runner frame, non-stop chatter, while I wheezed and gasped for air. Soon there were more after-school running invites, Sunday morning runs...... but best of all, a sincere friendship in bloom.

Without a doubt, Jacqueline is responsible for getting me off the couch all those years ago. Triathlon wasn't even an idea yet.........but if there hadn't been JQ's intervention, her pushing me back into a world that involved movement, I have no idea the person I would have become. Or worse - the person I would have remained.

Here's a great recap on her incredible athletic life and its trials, if you're interested in a great read on a woman who was once ranked #1 in the world in the marathon:
Jacqueline Hansen

People have been asking me if I am ever going to race again. I always hesitate…knowing deep inside that I'd rather run a little bit for a long time than run a lot and have to stop. I wonder about this, about where the line is for me.

I've been struggling a lot lately with feeling good enough. Good enough for what, or for whom (??) - only I can really challenge myself with those questions, or understand where the challenge lies. Sometimes I have a spell of days where I feel contentedly 'good enough.' It is enough that I get out there and try, over and over again, every day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Some weeks, good enough is pretty damn good. I look at the vision staring back at me in the mirror and feel proud. I know she is doing the best she can.

And then it happens, the wave of doubt leaves me sputtering and gasping for air and suddenly 'good enough' is up for debate.

I am a practical woman… I know that wishing is for stars and change comes to those who pursue it. It's just that the sheer overwhelming nature of just living, of desperately trying to create a life worth something, that has meaning, can make my head spin. We had work reviews today, basically a goal setting session for 2012. Even in the midst of all the positives and praise, I fixated on what I should and could be doing better. Nothing motivates me like success - and not success tied with financial prosperity (although who wouldn't love a great Christmas?) - but success intrinsically tied to doing my job(s) well, pleasing my boss and colleagues and furthering their belief in me...but all of this, to me the greatest success is being HAPPY.

Please, please... let me one day be successful...

In these moments where good enough no longer feels like enough…I need to stop and breathe. I need to figure out if the voice that is convicting me is the voice of truth, calling me in earnest to step up my game…or, if it is the voice of doubt whose sole purpose is to undermine my core. I need to respond to the truth. I need to turn up my iPod on doubt.

So will I ever race again? Does it even matter if I do, really? Will I think less of myself if I choose to quit? Will I live with the sting of regret if, for the first time in my life, I give in to fear? I'm not sure I have the answers to those questions... But in the still of the night...when it is quiet...and dark....and loneliness jumps into her side of the bed ... I sigh heavily as I force the calming ideal in my head...

It is indeed possible to be good enough in the midst of trying to be better.

Beautiful Boulder Mornings...

2012-01-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

A pretty morning view amid a run, don't you think??

"Crazy Lady" down the street

2012-01-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve not written about her yet. It's time for introductions.

There is a woman I have affectionately dubbed “Crazy Lady” who lives a few doors down. She’s prone to social missteps and is now known for her inaudible attempts at sentence structure in order to convey her thoughts. Oh, and don’t get me started on the beehive hairdo and wool knee socks worn with sandals… Oye!

Crazy Lady homeschools her 10-year old kid, whom I’ve naturally dubbed “Crazy Spawn”. I’ve made numerous attempts to befriend Crazy Spawn, as I have a cordial, waving hello relationship with a few of the other kids on the block. Many of them play outside during the daytime and they’re good kids.

Against my better judgment and intense dislike of crazy, her kid has been playing in my yard lately. Yesterday afternoon after school, a bunch of the kids played with sidewalk chalk. I stayed out there for a little bit to make sure everyone was getting along. They were playing hopscotch and hangman, thankfully there was no plotting to overthrow their parents or planning a coup to take over the neighborhood. After about half an hour I was bored out of my mind and had to go inside to make dinner and left a few of the good kids in the next door driveway with Crazy Spawn. An hour later, I went outside to take a look at the chalk drawing progress. Take a look at what my bulged out eyes saw! I confronted a few of the good kids who said that Crazy Spawn had drawn the picture and he had identified all the body parts for the whole neighborhood. Lovely.

In the middle of that picture, do you see the reason for my eyebrows to be almost off the top of my forehead? Still not sure? Let me show you a little closer.

Still not totally sure what you're looking at there? Hmmmm. How about this one?

My first thought upon seeing this drawing was that the chalk lady had some massive boobs. Then I noticed she was headless. Then I happened to notice she was also either a transvestite or perhaps a hermaphrodite.

For Real?

The sidewalk chalk has now been retired. I had to hose down the driveway before any of the other neighbors saw the porn and got scared.

I feel dirty.

Tag Teaming

2012-01-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

I am still learning all the internet lingo.

It seems I have been "tagged" -- and TWICE. This seems like a crazy way to get in some sort of internet threesome...... but what the heck. :)

The ~~crazy~~ lovely ladies over at Irondiva and ShutUpAndRun have chosen me to answer their questions. Okay okay! Since I got ~~gang raped~~ tagged twice I am going to combine their questions so I am not posting two of these suckers. No way I could be that interesting.

Here we go:

1. Post these rules
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself
3. Answer the questions set for you in their post
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
5. Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!

Random things about me:

1. I have never run a marathon. But I have done 13 Ironman events. "But....but... I need to know I can run a marathon before I run a marathon!!!" Pfffft. Bullshit. Proof right here, people.

2. I did Stand-Up in Los Angeles in my 20's.

3. I used to weigh almost 200lbs. (I like Doritos. )

4. I am a former High School Teacher. (Can Prozac please come in aerosol spray??!)

5. I can juggle. (Not my life or multiple tasks but actual balls.)

6. In 2006 I spent the night in Robin William's guest room in San Francisco. (Now THAT's a good story for me to share!)

7. I have been arrested.

8. I am actually very shy and sensitive. You won't see that in a group setting, but get me one-on-one and you will. There's a soft, quiet side most people don't expect.

9. I was having lunch with my friend Patty Heaton one day at the Farmers Market in West Hollywood. She was telling me she was nervous that she'd probably never work again. Two weeks later she booked "Everyone Loves Raymond" and the rest is, shall we say, showbiz history.

10. The beach is my sanctuary.

11. By age 25 I'd lost my twin sister, my mother and all of my grandparents, in that order. Feeling secure, taken care of and loved is overrated. Who needs that nurturing stuff to sustain emotional health anyway? Empty + Alone = Awesome.

Questions SUAR and Irondiva asked:

1. In five words or less, tell me your most embarrassing moment (example - mine would be boyfriend, toilet, overflow).

Ironman Wisconsin 2005: ASS EXPLOSION.

2. If you weren’t doing your current job, what would be your profession?

Dammit, I get asked this in therapy all the time. We still can't find an answer. (C'mon life!! Help me find the path!)

3. Do you think Bob Harper is gay?

I know with certainty that he is. One of his ex's, Brandon, is my friend. Not outing him. It's a fairly well known fact, it's just not mentioned on the TV show. Good. Why would that be any focus for a show about fitness?

4. What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I'm in love with you.

5. Would you be able to run further or faster?

It would depend what was chasing me.

6. What food gives you gas?

EVERY food.

7. Where is one place in the world you'd love to travel?

Easy. Italy.

4. If you won the lottery, would you still work?

Absolutely. It's not a good idea that I get bored. When/if I am, I will find something to fill the time - and it isn't always a smart choice.

9. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

Enough to get diabetes?

10. Would you rather be really hot or really cold?

I'd rather sweat than freeze!

11. If you could change just one thing about yourself, what would it be?

That I could roll over in the morning, or look into the eyes of a friend, and know with certainty if you told me I could trust you with my heart, that I actually could.

People I am tagging

Lee

swimbikerunlive
milesmusclesmommyhood
runtodaytritomorrow
wanna-be-triathlete
joelpstrickland

Questions:

1. Twister or Monopoly?

2. Which do you crave more? The chips & salsa, or chocolate?

3. You're sitting next to a friend(s) in a room. You fart and it's loud enough that you KNOW everyone heard it. Do you acknowledge it or pretend it never happened? (Okay, every situation is different....but you know yourself - in general, your reaction would be?)

4. Pizza or Hamburger (yes, buffalo burger acceptable)?

5. If you could go back to one conversation to change or add to something you said, what would it be?

6. Snow skiing or water skiing?

7. What is the craziest thing you have done (or advice you listened to) to try to heal an injury faster?

8. Are you a cat person or a dog person?

9. Do you wipe front to back, or back to front?

10. What's your favorite Charity?

11. Favorite rock/country/blues band of all time?

< drumroll ......... > AND THE WINNER IS.....

2012-01-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who played the contest game .......... I think we will all agree that the comments were hilarious -- and lots of folks were coming by just to see what others had said. LOVE IT. This contest blog had over 600 hits in two days. Not even remotely close to what my favorite blog of all time was getting before it went to cyber heaven (come back, FUPenguin!) but a pretty good showing for a small-town country girl like me. (kidding - I am all CITY, and all Lovin'!)

I would be remiss if I failed to mention ......... dang I have some FUNNY blog friends!!! You guys are awesome.

Before we get to the winner........I need to throw out a laugh for my loyal readers. I try very hard to not post videos unless REALLY funny. (Or at least I find them funny!)
Many of you have seen this before but I have not been able to stop watching this, repeatedly, for the last few weeks. I laugh hysterically EVERY TIME even though I have seen it going on ninety times.

You're going to love this. And yes, I am very immature. This is the stuff that collapses me into belly laughter. :)

(Warning: Extremely inappropriate language so choose viewing environment with care!)

Enjoy!

Okay. The Contest.

< drumroll, please ........... >

I found this extremely difficult. It brought me back emotionally to my years spent as a high school teacher. (Didn't know I used to be one? Scary, isn't it? ME in front of the youth of America... God help 'em!)
I wanted EVERYONE to win and didn't like having to select who was "better". I love everyone! (gag)

For future contests I probably won't be so nice.... but for this one, I couldn't help it - we have more than 1 winner.

The winner(s) of TRISLIDE.... go to......................

* ONEHOURIRONMAN

ONEHOUR's use of TriSlide on the handlebars of competition at a race was not only genius, it made me raise my eyebrows to consider returning to competition! Had ONEHOUR given me this great tip a few years ago, I would have beaten Bella with the surprise "TRISLIDE Handlebar Attack" and won that F*ing Ironman! :) ... ONEHOUR also backed it up (no pun intended) with the great Jerry Sandusky comment. Gross - but a creative use of lubricant.

* Cook Train Eat Race

For the reminder that guys in high school have enough room in their shorts for a 4oz can. Cook's suggestion that a high school kid stick the bottle in his shorts could change modern dating for teenagers around the globe... "No, silly, it's a can of TRISLIDE!" Hilarious. Having the can in one's shorts amid the unexpected mid-day stiffy might be uncomfortable, but he will manage. He's grateful he'll never be subjected to a Pap Smear. Now that's uncomfortable.

* ShutUpAndRun

For leaving more questions than answers with "lube the dog so his penis finally goes back in" ..... ?? First I laughed, then I scratched my head a bit in confusion, then I laughed again. ShutUp should provide some photos of this. Some things we all simply should see.

Sidebar question: shouldn't the penis always be out? I admit I lack a lot of personal experience to evaluate this conundrum, but similar to "laces out" in football, isn't the penis EXTERNAL, therefore, like a nose on a face, always out? Understood it grows and shrinks (so I've been told via Seinfeld's "I WAS IN THE POOL!!") - but always "out" regardless, right?

* BananaBuzzBomb

Anyone who has to stick her finger up the ass of an animal deserves to win ANY contest she enters! Enough said. (Plus we've gotta get Homegirl OFF the Pam!!)

Honorable Mention:

Lee

Though very funny, answering questions as someone other than yourself (i.e., ME) results in disqualification from contest. Lee has way too much personal information on me. *wink* (But thank you for playing!)

Matty-O

I think we all agree... f'ing hilarious. But as the spouse of a TRISLIDE sponsored athlete, Matty-O is ineligible for contest prizes. (but thank you for playing!)

Jeff Irvin

Use of political fire to validate the need for TRISLIDE was a deft maneuver. Clever, and reminded me to avoid Foreign Policy debates at all costs. Due to Jeff's personal affiliation with TRISLIDE he too is exempt. (But thank you for playing!)

And there we have it, Kids.

All winners please contact me at carole@rev3tri.com so you may collect your prize.

This was more fun than I expected .......... I will be brewing another contest in February.......... so stay tuned.......

FREE GIVEAWAY???

2012-01-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

So I was having a conversation with my sweet young grasshopper, Colleen . She and I share a few common traits. While Colleen is much more kind than I am - she is like the softer version of me :) ... (or the me I like after a full food belly

amid a warm sunny day on a beach)

... Young Grasshoppa' and I do share an appreciation for candid conversations, and for blunt honesty. She may sugar coat her words (again, she is the nice one) but they are direct and truthful nonetheless. Love it.

Colleen: "Carole", said in her great forbearing tone. "You seriously need to do a giveaway on your blog."

Me: "Really? Give-aways? That's kind of ghetto, no?"

Colleen: "No way it's not! Look. Triathletes are cheap. And we love free shit!"

Ha. Spoken like the honest woman I know.

Okay, okay, you little maggots. So you love some free shit huh? Okay, I can get down with that. I'll spend more than 4 hours cutting coupons that will save me maybe $6.00 in the grocery store.... I understand being frugal.

So let's roll this puppy out!!!

GIVEAWAY!!

Contest runs through Thursday, January 26 - 11am EST.

The Giveaway?

CAN OF TRISLIDE -- value $16.20

What is TRISLIDE , you ask? Oh, horror.

If you're still using that archaic Body Glide shit, it's time to evolve to the upgrade, my friends. (And if I ever see any of you using PAM when putting on your wetsuits.... come here, this will only hurt for a second. That crap will ruin your expensive neoprene wetsuits! ). Once you try this product, I know from experience, you'll never use anything else again.

TRISLIDE is the ONLY anti chafing, anti-friction, anti blistering product found in a convenient environmental friendly aerosol spray. Gone are the days of goopy messy hands and contaminated sticks, the continuous spray application of TRISLIDE is easy to use and safe to share! Compared to others that may wash off, it is waterproof which means sweat proof! TRISLIDE is a liquid silicone based product that can simply be removed with soap and water, will not stain clothes, and is the most innovative product to prevent chafing, blistering, irritation, and hot spots found in swimming, biking and running. Available in a 4 oz can.

The Contest:

You need to tell me 4 ways in which TRISLIDE can be and is used. Authentic ways, people! If you tell me you use it to scrape the mud from the hoof of your Llama, you'd better submit a photo to prove you indeed have a llama.

Bonus points for the most creative answers. If you know anything about me, I like humor. If you make me laugh, you're likely to get bumped to the top of the winner list ... but it's gotta' be a REAL use! I think I am afraid to even read the responses from Matty-O !!! Gracious.

The person who submits the best four (4) ways to use TRISLIDE gets the can!

Contest ends January 26, at 11am.

Have fun, kids!

Running Efficiently, A Coyote, And A Fast Gazelle

2012-01-22T12:37:00.000-08:00

Almost all of us have muscular weaknesses. We lack flexibility. Our gluts are weak. Tight hips and hamstrings? Whoa...oh yeah. Any of this sound like you? Well don't feel bad. This describes about 75% of the runners on the planet - and these deficiencies will plague us unless we actively work to improve these things.

I am no runner. I'm the first to admit that. I somehow have a few running credentials to my relatively lackluster stat sheet, and even those I consider very mediocre among a roomful of people I call elite. My progress accelerated on the bike in my early triathlon years quite quickly ........ but in comparison my running progress was never commensurate to what my cycling was. Running has never come easy to me. I struggle at it and work at it like I've committed to nothing in my life. I tell you this because I think it's important to being able to relate to me, and me to you. I work really hard to make minimal gains, I have to do tons of drills (and I look like a mutant giraffe while doing them!), and I work very hard at trying to do things that seem to come naturally to most others. I understand this frustration. I've put my time in.... and for a non-runner I did manage to get my Irondistance run off the bike down to 3:23 at my best race. Pathetic, and not even in the same league, compared to my elite competitors (let's see the swim evolve to 10-miles from it's '1/8 the distance of the bike or run' 2.4 and we'll see this sport start to even out a little more fairly.......but that's another rant!) but for one who has never done a marathon (but I've done 13 Ironman events....why run 26 miles without a 5+ hour bike warmup? Craziness! ha...), and only 3 half marathons in her lifetime (minus triathlon), this has been enormous run progress.

So how did I improve my running? Well, a couple excellent coaches deserve the credit for that ..... but essentially it is the attention to the details. For sure. So let's talk about one of them.

I've been running a bit more these days. A few mornings ago I was out on the trails. I was heading down a hill as Tim DeBoom was running up it - dude looked like a gazelle, our paces pretty much the same even though he was running UPHILL. The f*cker. :) We waved as I wheezed, "Damn you're flying" ..... He smiled and said, "I just started" as we passed..... we both laughed. He was heading in the direction of his house, about 3 miles ahead. He didn't just start. Funny.

I'm always aware of wild animals when on the Boulder trails. My two primary concerns: Rattlesnakes and Mountain Lions. I'm not so concerned about Rattlesnakes this time of year, but mountain lions - oh yea! Every crackling noise around me causes me to startle. I'm somehow always ready for a wild cat to pounce on me from the side of a ledge, sinking it's fangs into my neck, killing me instantly. My trailrunning friend, Louisa, says, "Carole, every time you have run on a trail a mountain lion has probably seen you. You just haven't seen IT!" Uggggg. I don't need to hear that.

Get a load of this shot taken a couple months ago from a Boulder residence.

Anyway, so I am running along a Boulder trail and come upon a warning sign...

Can't quite read what it says? Let's get up a little closer.

I found this sort of humorous. Okay okay, so "coyotes" are not the great predators of the Western Hemisphere. I hear ya. But, still. How often along one of your runs have you approached a sign that warned you about active coyotes? Something about that made me laugh.

But I digress. A few of my athletes have some REALLY tight hips, and a few some weak gluts too. Ah yes. The 1-2 punch. VERY common. One of the things I have been working on with a few of them is getting their spines a little more neutral when they run. Most of us compensate, somehow, when we have things that are weak or tight, and we may not be recruiting the needed muscles because stronger ones dominate. This can be a vicious cycle until we purposefully break it.

One thing I am very guilty of is arching my back a bit when I run, especially when I get tired. My gluts are no longer firing, and my body falls into "compensation mode". My quads take over and my lower back gets KILLED because it can't sustain that instability. My form sucks! Running like this is much less efficient!!! Running with a neutral spine means I am able to lift my knees easier, which makes me a more efficient runner. This doesn't mean to run vertically - we are talking hips and spine, not body position (that's for another post!).

A few weeks ago JZ was helping me get on a stretching program to loosen my hips and get them to open. Holy sh*tballs, Batman. She had to literally HOLD MY HIPS IN PLACE, USING ALL HER BODY WEIGHT, to keep me from hiking up my hips, compensating, etc. I am THAT tight. I've got to work on this or I will continue to work harder with very little gain.

A few of the athletes I coach are on similar structures. There is a great 8 minute Pilates video for you to try that I really like. Try to follow along with her - notice how you keep your lower back pressed to the floor as you lift your knee. Notice how much easier this is. If you can't do this while on the floor, consider that you're probably not doing this when you're upright and trying to run either.

Pilates Video

Then, bring this video work to your running. Think about your lower back being able to touch the floor (as if you were horizontal) and see if that helps a bit....

Oh, and of course....... after your long runs, be sure you are recovering optimally. A good pair of Swiftwick Compression Socks here! (best I have ever tried!) TV, and a ~~recovery drink~~ glass of wine!

Happy running, friends!

Blind Dates and Latin Lovers

2012-01-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

The Dating World. Once again, single women: unite! Gawd how I hate dating. It is the greatest thing EVER when you meet someone with whom you feel a mutual connection. But finding THAT .... ugggg, the ongoing nightmare.

I realize I should be more positive in approach about this ......... and trust me when I say if my overriding emotion wasn't optimism I would have removed myself from these ~~wastes of time~~ glorious opportunities long ago ........... but let's just remember I am jaded due to copious experience. Not assumption. Experience.

It’s not to say that I’ve become disenchanted or disillusioned, because that would imply I had grandiose illusions and, um, enchantments to begin with. Is ‘enchantments’ really the word I’m looking for? Because short of stewing toad legs and newt eyes in my spare time, I can’t say as I’ve ever let myself be enchanted by much of anything - or when I have, pain has been soon to follow. I’m nothing if not a realist. Maybe a very optimistic realist, but a realist nonetheless. I’m aware that kittens get run over, puppies are bludgeoned and little old ladies have their life savings stolen by men of ill repute, men who normally lack a full set of teeth.

Nonetheless, I am out there, my friends, and let me tell you, it is a scary, scary sight. Adhering to the optimistic notion that "you never know...", I am hurling myself back into battle with the latest blind date. Arm yourself, Sharpie. It's a brutal bloodbath.

A couple days ago my friend Kim calls me.

Kim: "I want you to meet my Veterinarian. He is awesome. He did surgery on my dog's hip!"

Already I am skeptical.

Me: "A Vet? You know why people become Veterinarians? Because they can't relate to HUMANS!"

Kim: "Ha! Sharpie! Nooooo.... He is funny! He is from South America - so you may be getting yourself a Latin Lover!"

What is this, 'Sex And The City: Season 7'? Who "gets a lover" outside of the HBO Sitcom?

Me: "Oh Good LORD. That's all I need - some guy's mangy paws all over me right from the start. Gross. Does he even speak English??"

Kim: "YES! Okay, there's a thick accent but I think you'll understand him."

You think I will??

Kim: "He is great. He did veterinary surgery in San Francisco and NY, he is smart and successful - how bad could he be?"

Here we go. Exactly. Spoken like a true non-single woman!

Me: "Kim! How BAD can he be? Setting the lowest possible standard and then determining how far from the bottom this guy is is not the optimal approach to ideal mate selection."

Kim: *Laughs* "Look. He is funny and likes to make people laugh. You are funny and like to make people laugh. Win-win right there. He is calling you later. And you're going!"

Several hours pass......later I get a call from The Latin Lover. We exchange the initial awkward pleasantries, but truth be told we have an upbeat, fun conversation. How could we not - combine an Italian girl with a dude from South America?? .... OPA!!! ..... and I am able to decipher his quite good English amid his heavy accent. He is smart and engaging.

However, he is most definitely LATINO.... sorry, but how do stereotypes become stereotypes?

Urban dictionary defines the Latin Lover: The best men out there... they're not only very sensual and manly (unlike All-American men) but they're gorgeous, with warm golden skin, dark bedroom eyes and full lips. Most are hot but those men are so sexy with their rich ethnic accents.

And....

Dark Little men from latin america who think they are good in bed, most of the women they get are fat and ugly but that is sexy by latin standards; these men will have sex with farm animals they are so desperate and barbaric

Lovely. Back to our phone call. Among his and my exchanges:

Him: "Are you going to wear a short dress with heels for me?"

Me: "Ummmm, no. I'll be in jeans and a sweater, amigo. This is BOULDER. But I will shower."

The Latin Lover laughs.

and...

Him: "You'll go salsa dancing with me?"

Me: "Hell no." < aren't I fun? naaa, I was teasing with him - he laughed. >

Him: "Maybe you'll come with me to Vail when I go skiing. Do you ski?"

Already the vacation invite? The Latin Lover doesn't waste time.

Me: "Nope, I don't ski. But I am great in the lodge!"

Him: "And maybe you'll be in the bathtub in our Penthouse Suite?"

Okay, funny boy. Damn Latinos! It's always about this, isn't it? :) Thankfully, years of experience have taught me well. I know how to handle these chaps and keep their jet engines cooled.

Me: "I'm a swimmer. I don't sit in water unnecessarily. And my hotel suite would be MINE, Casanova."

Him: "Ooohhhh... haaa haaaa, I am just kidding Carole, just kidding. Testing your humor..."

:) Uh huh. Testing the humor alright. I've got his ethnic charm completely figured out, and I will not be caught off guard.

So............. I will be meeting The Latin Lover for a glass of wine... and, somehow, I am envisioning this:

This will be us!

.

Cougar Town In Boulder

2012-01-17T05:23:00.000-08:00

A reload from last year. Still a story that makes me giggle. Something tells me we all need a laugh today...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I wasn't going to put this out there for public consumption. Sometimes these little nuggets are best kept among a small circle of friends. But a few friends who I told were all like, "You gotta put this one on your blog!!"

Ummmm... ok...

A few weeks ago my good friend from Atlanta, Patrick, was in town visiting his CU son, Kevin. We trolled (yes) on over to The Dark Horse CU bar for dinner (eugh?), which was a dark, hollowed out canyon saloon which reeked of bad beer and stale puke. (Good memories of college days came flooding back!) We all sat in the bar area to eat - the usual scenario where you strike up conversations with those around you.   I ended up in some flirtacious banter with a CU Rugby Sophomore .... c'mon, let Sharpie have a little fun ....... Homeboy most certainly did NOT look 20 - he did look young though - but then I don't look 25 either! (Ahem!)   Patrick and Kevin were eavesdropping on our conversation the whole time .... I would occasionally look over and wink at them as they were laughing and shaking their heads at me.

By the end of my burger and 50-cent Monday-Night-Ladies-Night-Beer-Pitcher-Special, my little friend was warm for my form. I get invited back to his "dorm". (Oh, the memories!) Romantic and compelling offer, for sure, but I'm thinking probably not. (Understood we're talking a 20 year old male in college - dude would have taken home anything with a PULSE - this bears no compliment to me. But at least the offer was when he was sober. Beer goggles were not involved. *score!*)

Homeboy was all about the wooing. Demonstrating his mastery of the art of seduction, he skillfully tosses out the "you're hot" descriptor.    Damn right I'm hot, little boy. And it only requires one roll of duct tape to keep these boobs up too.

Alas, I had to turn him down with the reality check. Cougar / Mrs Robinson aside, he's got to at least be able to legally rent a car. I have standards.

Carole: "Honey, I am old enough to be your mother..."

Here comes the comeback of the century. Ready?

Little Friend: "Good - then it will be familiar to you."

Ummmmmmmmm... HUH??   Clever comeback --- but EUGH????!!!!!!!!   I can't even describe the look of confusion plus utter gross-out that I shot him.

I thought about following up with something about "spotting due to premenopause" (gotta teach the young lad a thing or two!) but thought I'd just leave it alone...

Throughout this evening I'd been texting my good friends, Anthony and Michele Beeson, about the scene. Michele sent me a great text: "Embrace it. You're hot. Rugby hunk wants you!"

Ha!
I've still got it. ;)

The Starfish Story

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out, "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied, "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?", asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die".

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

Swimming With Snow

2012-01-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

You just gotta love Colorado. Not only does the weather fluctuate intensely (snow and cold yesterday, by tomorrow we will be up to about 60 degrees!) ....... but the year round outdoor swimming still leaves me laughing.

Swimming with rain drops falling onto my back is a familiar feeling .... but there is something about snowflakes falling onto me - soft yet cold, melting instantly against the warm contrast of my back - that I'm still not used to.

Cheers from the outdoor life of January in Boulder!

photo compliments of Laura Tingle

Buzzing With Battle

2012-01-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

The other night I was waiting for some friends to pick me up for our night out. While I was waiting for them to arrive, I decided to straighten up the kitchen. On the marble countertop next to the cutting board was a small dark fleck. Assuming it was a breadcrumb or other random bit of foodstuff that goes flying around the kitchen whenever I get over-hungry, I picked it up to throw it away.

Immediately something felt weird: The breadcrumb was sticking to my thumb. And not in a “breadcrumb covered in chocolate pudding” kind of way, but almost latched on. I opened the trash and tried to flick it off, and that’s when I felt the sting. Not of regret or inflated gas prices, but a literal sting. I brought my thumb close to my face and there, clutching my thumb with all it's tiny might, was a little baby bee.

My gut instinct was to yelp and dance around like an Indian until it came off, but for the briefest second I thought, “Man up, Sharpie!” (Is it bad that, as a woman, I empower myself with machismo?)

Halfway through thinking all this I began to violently shake my hand and bang it against several things, like the countertop, my leg, the refrigerator and my other hand. I figured a compromise of flailing without making any sissy guttural noises was the appropriate response. Baby steps.

Finally, the little bee fell off my finger and into the trash. I looked down at it on top of a heap of magazines and bean salad and thought, “What up now, bitch?” I turned on the light and noticed that the stinger was still sticking out of my thumb. With a coolness that can only come with being a victor of war, I carefully removed it and threw it in the trash with Bumbley.

As I was running my hand under cold water, I took a moment to replay the situation in my head. Clearly, I thought, the bee must have been nearly dead for it to lay so still on the countertop. What had happened? How did a nearly dead bee end up in my kitchen? Was he beaten and left for dead by a rival hive? Did he get lost in my air conditioning duct and, after a harrowing, chilly journey, end up (to his ultimate dismay!) to have made it inside instead of out? Or did it go full-retard?

It was then that I started to feel a bit ashamed of my actions. Here’s this undersized bee, on the brink of death in an unfamiliar place, yet when an enormous human thumb closes on it, it still, still summons the energy somehow, someway to battle back, not go down without a fight, to use the last of its energy to preserve what little time it had left to think about his comb, that time he and the Queen’s daughter got in trouble for flying off to the orange grove and staying out past curfew. And here I was acting like a wuss. That brave bee didn’t deserve to die. I did. He is the better warrior than me.

Too bad the bitch ate it.

What's He Bringing?....

2012-01-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

....He's bringing Hairy Back!

There is one thing for certain I know about my spirit. I respond to water.

Whenever I have any serious issues I am trying to work through, a problem I need to solve, or I just feel the world is too heavy for me to bear alone at the moment, I always know what I need to do: Get myself to a beach. Pronto. I'll sit on the sand to watch the sunset, I'll gaze for hours at the surf, watch the waves roll in, listen to them crash, smile at the pelicans who skim the water's edge until they nosedive in on their prey. I'll sharply inhale the crisp beach air as though every breath is healing - in many ways, perhaps it is. I'll ponder...I'll probe intensely, and I'll ask myself the tough questions. I won't always find the answers I may need, but I am able to force myself onto more stable footing with these forced water excursions. This weekend I was able to get away for a few days for my mental bootcamp. I've hit my "reset" button and my eyes are locked to face forward.

One of the best parts was getting to see my adopted family for an afternoon - my Rev3 Mom & Dad, Debbie and Charlie Patten Sr. They are such kind people, the laughs are always abundant, their hilarious stories are unending - and their affection towards me a constant stream of love.

Anyway, so I'm bringing Hairy Back?? Life is good when you can retool Justin Timberlake's SexyBack to mean exactly the opposite of the song's original meaning as well as utilize its obvious homonym to make a post title that's not just ironically clever, but grammatically clever, as well. Score!

And if you're functionally retarded and the above hairy back descriptive wasn't enough for you to figure out where I'm going with this blog, allow me to present to you a visual:

goldilocks aint havin' this

Yep. Today's subject is the hairy back. And today's lesson is that hairy backs are not okay. In fact, dudes having hairy backs is equivalent to ladies having mustaches; in both cases, those gnarly tufts of hair make you unnecessarily ugly. But eureeka! In both cases there is an easy way to avoid disgusting others -- WAX THAT SH*T. Please.

And while this is a general Public Service Announcement for the world, I must hone in on how this affected my life in FL this weekend. There I was, just walking down the beach street, ~~minding my own business~~ ~~taking care of business~~ looking for a bar, when I saw him. Like a big game hunter, I immediately hunkered down and got my ammo ready. I aimed and shot.

Unfortunately, the shot is not as clear as I had hoped and so you'll have to take my word for it: This man's back was hairy. Damn hairy. This man should not have had his shirt off. I don't care how hot or humid it is outside. How's about if you want to cool off, you shave off the layer of wool growing out of your back? Seriously. Unflattering. And yes, I think he's also scratching his butt in this pic. Seriously. Classy.

Godspeed, e-friends. And good luck out there.

Finding Your Path

2012-01-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

My friend Stephanie was telling me today about hating her job — how everything and everyone related to it emotionally drained her. She was bored, unchallenged, and a few other adjectives that meant she wanted to leave and didn’t want to work there anymore. She said she spent every free and not so free moment looking for another job.

I asked, “Do you wake up every weekday with 101 reasons to call in… immediately followed by three reasons to go in anyway?” She said, “YES, that’s it!” For responsible people, food, clothing, and shelter defeat their 101 reasons most of the time. These basic motivating needs have a way of bringing reality to our wake-up call and purpose to our pain.

I understood her pain. A lot of us do. We've all had something - a place or a situation or a person - we've needed to leave; it's time to go but we dig our heels in deeper and seem to hang on. For me, figuring out the root cause of my discontentment increased my self-awareness and personal growth. It was a frustrating journey filled with many crossroads and valuable lessons about me and the ‘whys’ behind my decision making.

We can’t always quit when we experience discontentment, especially if we haven’t taken a step back to gain some perspective. Michael Beckwith says, "People grow in two ways: through pain or through insight." Many choose the path of pain by continually bumping their head up against life until they start asking themselves some empowering questions. Other people grow through insight. They’re inspired. They become inspired by something that motivates them to grow.

Growth is difficult. Some of my best mistakes challenged me to grow and some of my worst ones kept me stuck, because it was easy to see the effect and contribute it to the wrong cause. By pushing through my need to deflect from myself and getting to the point of assessing myself, I learned the difference between running towards something and running away from it.

Honestly asking yourself how you arrived where you are now can help you create an action plan, which is better than simply reacting. I dealt with my painful discontentment by reducing the complaining, increasing my ownership, and taking risks outside of my comfort zone. This provided me with the insight to understand what I did well, the habits that held me back, and the skills I needed to develop.

I also learned how to drink more. (kidding)

There is a popular quote that says there are two important days in your life — the day you were born and the day you find out why. I have met people who knew their “why” in their childhood while others figured it out much later through life experiences.

When I read that “some people clock in and clock out all their life without getting to their life,” I immediately thought I know people like that and I got it. Pursuing your “why” is not free or unchallenged; it includes some wrong turns, exits, breakdowns, and people you will have to pick up and drop off along the way. The journey is different for everyone and, for some, they are okay with not knowing, but for others, it’s a restless pursuit.

For the restless, we are challenged with not having enough reasons to stick around a place or a situation or a person. So, we have to learn to embrace periods of being discontent (or even unhappy?) for what it’s intended to be —a temporary layover for personal growth, a time to learn about yourself and your motives (why), and life lessons for handling conflict. It also can help you learn to honestly answer, Is it you? The situation? Or, is it both?” Because if it is you, running away won’t change you since you take yourself wherever you go. You must make a concerted effort to learn about yourself (the good and bad) without casting blame elsewhere as an excuse to not grow and move on.

To me, you haven’t lived unless you have been painfully unhappy and unsure what to do because you have to work through the pain. It separates the girls from the women and the boys from men. Embrace it and stop complaining, take the necessary steps to do better, and, if need be, exit your current situation gracefully. Let your actions — instead of your complaints – say, “If you don’t think I am leaving, count the days I’m gone.”

Here we go again ...... (I can't help but watch!)

2012-01-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

As my loyal readers will attest, I have a slight obsession with 'The Bachelor' TV show. I get sucked in harder than a porn star. Mostly because I almost always feel better about my own life while watching the cat fights, crying fits and drama that encircles multiple women vying for the ~~penis~~ heart of one man.

This show brings out my darker side, the jaded soul who hates on love...and I've shared my ~~hate~~ sarcastic jabs on my blog.
In any event, last night was the Season Premiere of The Bachelor....I sat glued to the TV, of course, while clutching my Geritol. I attempted to compose another masterpiece blog but stumbled upon a gem more worthy of reading. Ann Oldenburg, writer for USA Today, is one of my favorite columnists because she is bitter and snarky like I am, and she pulls no punches when she writes - like me. I laugh out loud when I read her quips and I am about ready to stalk her just to become her friend.   (Seriously, her recaps on The Kardashian shows are epic!)

Because she did a far better job on this one than I could ever do, I share with you The Bachelor Recap courtesy of Ms Oldenburg.   It's hilarious.

Ben Flajnik is "ready to start again, to find love."

The Sonoma, Calif., winemaker, whose proposal was rejected by Bachelorette Ashley Hebert during the last cycle of the ABC reality romance show, launched his love quest on Monday's premiere of The Bachelor. Admitting he was "nervous," Flajnik, 28, said he was "ready" approximately 20 times during the two-hour premiere.

Could his Princess Charming be among the 25 women who met him at the Bachelor mansion? Host Chris Harrison was on hand to help welcome them all as they pulled stunts to try to make a memorable first impression:

- Amber T., 28, is a nurse from Waverly, Neb. And this nurse can shoot a gun.

- Kacie, 24, is an administrative assistant from Knoxville. Ben's "hot," she says. "I want this me to be a we."

- Courtney, 28, from Santa Monica, is a model who "can't be bothered" by competition with other girls. Oh, and she's ready for a two-carat diamond ring. "I have the biggest crush on you," she said -- the first thing out of her mouth.
"That is a pretty girl," said Ben, as she walked away.

- Jamie, 25, from Dryden, N.Y., is a nurse with a big smile, who has had a tough time in life, having to raise her siblings on her own.

- Lyndsie, 29, from London, lives in Scottsdale. Her dad's a diplomat. She said she likes to write "dorky poems" and read one to Ben when she met him. "I'm a dork, I know."

- Jenna, 27, from New York City, writes a blog called The Overanalyst. She tried to quote Ben when she met him and messed up the phrase. She didn't get off to a good start.

- Shawn, 28, Phoenix, is a financial analyst. She has a young son named Gavin. Shawn gave Ben a slug on the arm when she met him.

- Nicki, 26, from Hurst, Texas, is a divorced dental hygienist. Ashley Hebert, who just got her dental degree, tweeted during the show that "Nicki needs to come work for me!"

- Rachel, 27, a fashion sales rep from New York, told Ben: "My middle name is rose." As in, give me one and don't kick me off the show yet.

- Erika, 23, a law student from the Chicago area told Ben, "The verdict is in. You are guilty of being sexy." Har har. Ben liked the line.

-Amber B. 23, a nurse from Canada, made sure to say her last name was Bacon. "Do you love bacon?" She asked Ben.

- Elyse, 24, a personal trainer from Chicago, promised they'd "have fun tonight."

- Emily, 27, Ph.D. student in Chapel Hill, N.C., gave him some hand sanitizer and breath spray, then kissed him.

- Samantha, 26, from Los Angeles, wore her Miss Pacific Palisades sash to make herself stand out.

- Casey S., 26, from Leawood, Kan., didn't have much to say.

- Holly, 34, a pharmaceutical rep from Kentucky, sported a big Derby-style hat.

- Shira, an actress from Los Angeles, said she knew everything about wine, then said she knew nothing about wine.

- Blakely, 34, a cocktail waitress from Charlotte, was surprised to learn there were other Southerners in the house.

- Sheryl, 72, from Colorado, got out of the limo and walked to Ben on crutches. She said she watched him last season and "fell madly in love" with him. Then she introduced her granddaughter, Brittney, 26, a medical sales rep from Denver. Good way to get yourself noticed.

- Dianna, 30, a non-profit director from San Gabriel, Calif., completely forgot what she was going to say and giggled her way in.

- Jennifer, 28, an accountant from Oklahoma City, threw some numbers at Ben, including "54, the number of dresses I tried on before picking this one."

- Anna, 25, a student from Detroit, tried a completely different ploy to get noticed. She said nothing and walked right by Ben, giving him nothing more than a sexy look.
"That's a bold move," said Ben. "That's awesome. Gotta be some kind of first."

- Monica, 33, dental consultant from Salt Lake City, confessed that she was missing her dog. Later, she appeared to have fallen not for Ben, but for another woman -- Blakely. "You're beautiful. You're amazing," Monica said to her as the two lounged on a couch, Monica draped all over Blakely.
Earlier, Monica was mean to Jenna, who spent the night obsessing about it and ABC spent a lot of camera time focusing on it.

- Jacklyn, 27, advertising account manager from Newton, Mass., told Ben he looked "dapper."

- Lindzi, 26, from Seattle. She's into horses, but "tired of horsing around," in the dating game. She rode in on a horse in a black gown, hat and boots.

Jealous of her impressive entrance, the women were ticked off. And the claws came out. Said Courtney: "Screw you and the horse you rode in on."

Courtney, meanwhile, kept telling Ben he's got great hair. "I feel like I don't have to worry about these other girls here. They're kind of annoying. I'm better than them. I think I'll be patient and let them shoot themselves in the foot."

The women commenced drooling, flirting and vying for Ben's heart and one of his roses. One made him eat candy with a blindfold on. Another made him do push-ups.

But the drama centered around Jenna, who constantly cried over Monica's meanness, and was basically a mess. "I guess I'm scared," she said, sobbing behind a closed door.

In the end, Lindzi's horse entrance paid off. She landed the "first impression" rose.
Ben also gave roses to Jamie, Rachel, Blakely, Emily, Kacie B., Casey S., Brittney, Erika, Shawn, Nicki, Jennifer, Elyse, Samantha, Courtney, Jacklyn, Monica ... and crying Jenna.

Let the drama begin!

Time Honored Traditions In Boulder

2012-01-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

The New Year has arrived. We all get a blank page. This is an opportunity to tie up any loose ends. Say I love you, I forgive you, and I'm sorry if you have left anything unsaid. The clock is ticking. Look backwards one more time and evaluate. Make your pile of things to let go. It's time. Because now we are facing forward and moving on....

Pictures are worth a thousand words.
The Boulder Beer Mile

Here was my hilarious invitation from our annual host, Billy Edwards:

Who: Everyone who has the cajones (in the figurative sense, ladies) to step up for four laps and 4 cans of 5% by volume. AND those who want to watch the idiots that try. Men and Women are equally invited to contest for gender specific trophies.

What: Seriously, if ...you don't know by now, ask a friend and google tastybeverage1609meters.com

When: New Years's EVE DAY, as always- Registration/Placement of Cans at 2:30, Crack of the cans at 3:00pm

Where: The little circle is currently buried somewhere off Norwood and it's in Boulder. Figure it out, because it ain't the first time this circus has run here.

Why: The most coveted pass down trophies in all of Boulder- The Drunk Bears are up for grabs.
Also, because it's Boulder and there are a lot of serious athletes who think they can chug (but most chunder) and it's cold and the drinking season is nearly over! Plus there is snow and less oxygen and it ain't San Diego where those sallies run in shorts only when it's warm. Wear your best costume with or without your smallest speedo. Show up ready to race, but also come to see one of the best dam shows in all of endurance sports.

Finally, we need a snow blower. Get back to me if you can help. I think shoveling 15inches for 400m could be a bit tough.

I believe the pictures can say it all.
Here is my friend Kim and me from the sidelines:

And........I'll just let you scroll through these to enjoy.... (there is no Beer Mile like the Boulder Beer Mile!)

(Don't worry - Sharon isn't really pregnant! It's her costume. Hilarious. We were all yelling, "Chug it. It's good for the baby!"

And, some photos from our snacks after the Beer Mile...

JZ, Jen and Kelly................

JZ, me, Baby Paige and Lara....

Matt, Baby Kingston and Kelly....

HAPPY 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Transitions, learnings...and some love for the home team

2011-12-31T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here we sit on the single day in the year when I am probably my most reflective ... December 31st. This may be my favorite day of the year. I don't like it for the standard reasons, like I have a great party to go to, or a cute dress to wear, or even someone special to kiss at midnight. None of these things, really, as I sit here in my office, in comfy jeans, wearing slippers, with varied evening options that are still undecided. In a couple hours I am heading to watch the time honored December 31 tradition here in Boulder - the Beer Mile. (Oye!) I'll report in on that later.

The Beer Mile crazy spectacle aside, I love this day because I have a fascination with transition....

....and if December 31st is not a transition day I don't know what is. I have a ritual on this day, maybe because I'm a writer and most writers seem to have rituals for everything important. On the last day of the year, I take stock and look forward, all at once.

I began my morning with some quiet time at a coffee shop nestled in the Boulder Foothills, clutching one of my favorite pairings: a blank piece of paper with a pen. Surrounded by the glorious mountains in the background, and my steaming mug of coffee in hand - I was content. As I inhaled the morning's crisp air, I began making my gratitude list - all the things I am grateful for in 2011. And I assess my learnings therein. I can't seem to travel into a new year until I have paid proper homage to the one I am leaving behind. My gratitude list is long and detailed. I particularly like to say thank you for the things that normally go unnoticed, or for the things that normally elicit grumbling rather than gratitude. These things all made my list.

This year saw great triumph as well as heartbreaking sadness. I've begun to wonder if the two will always be inexplicably intertwined. Be careful embracing a joyous feeling too tightly, it will soon be taken away and eclipsed by sorrow. In turn, however, hold your line - the sorrow will pass, hopefully, and be replaced with a lighter spirit. At least this is what I tell myself.

This year was cause for much jubilation: I remained out of the hospital with no broken bones or head injuries....and if you know anything about me, this is cause for celebration.

I deepened personal relationships among the Rev3 staff.

....and among the incredible AG team who are like my children. And not children in the sense that I want to put them in juvy (juvenile hall) or submit them to corporal punishment (okay, maybe I do!) ........ but children in the sense that they've become my family.

I finally perfected my lasagna ...
... and for only the second time in my life - I fell in love.

I also accomplished an item high on my bucket list .... a night of partying with Charlie Patten - both of us partying. Homeboy is known for rare deviation from his strict no-alcohol rule, so this was, indeed, an accomplishment (complete with alcohol-induced crank calls to our beloved Rev3 staff: Charlie Sr, Race director Eric, Ashley, Crazy Chris, Krista and Billy all got a shout out.)

Sorry, Charlie. Had to post this. It's my dang BUCKET LIST. :)

Unfortunately, jubilation will often be accompanied by it's partner, sorrow. Among the losses, my heart was broken - deeply and profoundly. Finding a compatible mate for me is truly a proverbial needle in a haystack. I do not believe I am 'picky' but do require a chemistry and mental attraction to accompany its physical such that it had been 7 years since I'd felt it. I wonder with awe (and am jealous) at those who end a meaningful relationship and are in another soon to follow. This has never been me. Finding someone who captures my attention - in mind, body and spirit - doesn't happen a lot. Not to me.

So, on this transition day I rejoice and feel utterly grateful for having felt this at all, even for a short time, before it was taken. The tears I have shed in losing it doesn't trump my gratitude for having had it. And while I have no way of knowing if love will ever find me again, and history proves I will have a long-ass wait, this experience showed me it is possible. . . . and once in a while, good things do happen to good people who deserve it.

One thing I have definitely learned this year .... and I continue to ponder with great intensity ..... is the inference of "the law of attraction". I've been a believer in it, and still am, but I've learned something.   I absolutely DO believe we are responsible for the positive or negative 'energy' (for lack of a better word) we put out there. We are responsible for how we treat people.   We are responsible for creating a space in which others want to join.... and all of this can impact what we will or won't attract. I agree with all of this. Mostly.

I met Him on a day I was undeniably cranky. I was in a foul mood; I knew it then and know it now. There was no "positive energy" coming from me on this day, I can assure you of that.   In fact, I even forced myself to leave the place early because I was so fed up with my own bad mood and attitude. I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade, so I left in order to give myself a stern talking to about my negative energy.   And of my interaction with Him, while, sure, there were a few jokes tossed out (that's my personality under any condition), I was a bitch to Him that day. I hate to acknowledge that but I really was. I would later tell friends I couldn't believe He went on to seek me out and even wanted to talk to me again after my behavior. I was not at all the sweet and considerate woman He went on to love --- I was a bitch-on-wheels.

What's my point?   It's rhetorical, but here it is:  I don't think it always ends up mattering "what we put out there".  I think, possibly, we are simply meant to meet people, or we fall into situations, and it happens regardless of the magnet we create of "like attracting like".  This situation proved it to me.   There was NO REASON under the sun this guy should have been attracted to that girl (me) that day under the theory of Law of Attraction. But He was.   I was "hot and hilarious". His words.

I do believe in the concept of positive attracting positive. And I will continue to strive toward the ideal of putting my best self out there.   But I also now hold firm that these are not absolutes. Luck has something to do with it.   Fate has something to do with it.   Coincidence has something to do with it.   And, if you choose to believe in a Master plan (I do) - the Big Man upstairs has something to do with it .......    Sometimes you will be a miserable wretch yet randomly meet a soul who falls in love with you. And sometimes you will put the best energy out there you can but you'll travel the land for 7 lonely years without meeting anyone. The shit doesn't really matter. That's my point.

So............in looking to 2012........ It's too overwhelming to me to look a brand new year square in the face. I need to break it down into bite-sized portions. I used to do the same thing with an Ironman; I simply could not fathom the distance intellectually, so I made mile markers in my mind to make the race more attainable (instead of one looming finish line, I need several more moderate ones).
I have to make mile markers in my life for the same reason.

What began with gratitude at the start of my list then moved to a sneak peek at what I'd like to be grateful for on this day next year. Many of the things were the same, so it appears endurance continues to be an ongoing theme. But there were other things, things that stretch me and possibly require more than I am equipped for right now. I continue to challenge myself not to shrink from fear but to head straight into it, fighting and clawing, until I somehow reach the other side.

And then I went running along my favorite trail in Boulder. The New Year has to start clean, and we all know that a good sweat is essential for cleanliness. I took a long and winding route nestled in the canyons. While I ran, I tried to free my thoughts to match my stride, like a big tangled ball of yarn was unraveling inside me.

I hope you have a chance to soak in this precious transition day, whether it's actually today or sometime before the new year gets any serious traction. I hope you make time for a New Year's run, the kind that flushes out your legs and lungs, and clears your head to meet the year with hopeful anticipation. I wish you the finest blessings and a voice to carry the quiet desires of your heart.

Thank you for running the proverbial miles with me.
Carole :)

Just a crazy little mid-day section

2011-12-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

Mid-day yesterday was just one of those craaaazzzzeeeee, rapid-fire funny happenings / conversations that are probably only funny to me. But there were a series of things that just had me laughing.

First - kudos to Lara Cooper Edwards for having THE LINE of 2011. (I'Il get to that in a minute...)

So I roll into Flatirons Club for Jane Scott's 12:30p Masters.

As I'm walking in, I run into Billy & Lara <cooper> Edwards.

Carole: "Coop, do you know a guy named ***?"

Lara: "No, what's up?"

Carole: "I think I'm getting set up with him so I wanted scoop."

Lara: "Have you stalked him online yet?" (This isn't the classic line, but this was funny)

Carole: "Bah haaa! Ummm, no! I don't do that! ....uhhhh, I get my friends to do it."

Lara: "I'm on it."

We're now in the lobby. Kelly Reed is blabbing on her cell phone (shocker!), Matt Reed is sitting next to her with 2-year old Peyton on his lap. In a simultaneoous swoop I bend over to kiss Peyton's cheek while I cup Kelly's entire size 0, and looking HOT, ass. Kelly is unfazed, doesn't miss a beat with her conversation and just gives me a big wink. I look at Matt and he just laughs at me.

I wander to the pool deck and exchange a few pleasantries with a new cutie male friend whose name I haven't even gotten yet.

Dude: "So what do you do?"

Carole: "I work for Rev3"

Dude: <seemingly impressed> "Oh... I didn't know that."

Carole: "That's okay. Why would you know that?"

Bear in mind I am wearing this Rev3 swim suit. :)

Dude: "I guess I could have just read your body" (referring to my Rev3 suit)

Carole: "Like every man should do!"

He choked on water as he laughed.

Dave Scott was in the next lane and was pretty intent on letting all of us know we are fat. :) It doesn't help matters that Dave-o is looking fricking svelte these days. Man alive, he seiously has the body of a 24 year old, I'll admit he looks really good. (Take a day off, dave!) Mike and I were at the wall in our lane and Dave heckled, "Mike, eating a few too many hot dogs I see." Baaa haaaaaa! Man, this is harsh.

Whatever, Boulder is crazy - Mike is like 7% body fat. Freaks.

Okay okay - the line of the year!

At some point Lara takes notice of my Rev3 suit.....which is admittedly in shambles a bit. The strap is worn through and it's a mess.

Lara: "What's going on here? You're one bad flipturn away from full frontal."

Baaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I about died laughing. Funnny girl...

Just a nutty day at Flatirons.

Warnings

2011-12-28T08:40:00.001-08:00

I just read an article on the dangers of heavy drinking... scared the hell out of me. So thats it, after today ... no more reading.

News Update!!!

2011-12-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

NEWS UPDATE! I Didn’t Attend A Sex Party In Atlanta ((Reloaded from 5/2010)

I am going to do my best to write about this so the hilarity of the night is captured. Sometimes these things are funnier in person than on paper. I’ll do my best…. ‘cause the night was funny.

When I began to book my travel to the Rev3 Knoxville race, it was much less expensive just to fly in and out of Atlanta and drive to Knoxville. My ex-boyfriend, Mark (he lives in Atlanta), asked if I would have time to join him for an event before I returned to Boulder. Mark and I dated years ago but have remained great friends. I’m glad he overlooks my obvious lack of intelligence for never having married him. :)

Mark laid out the concept for the party we were attending; I was intrigued. The event, thrown by one of Atlanta’s contemporary art museums, featured three parts:

First, you arrive at a cocktail party held in the museum. There you receive an envelope containing an address where you’ll be going for dinner. Apparently, ten wealthy art collectors had volunteered to open their homes (and their impressive art collections) to twenty or so random guests. (Think of it like a pot luck dinner, except you couldn’t afford to bring anything even if you wanted to.)

After the dinner parties are over, everyone reconvenes at Atlanta’s beautiful downtown Glenn Hotel, at its elegant rooftop bar, to compare notes on what they stole from these people’s homes. Or talk about art. Whatever.

“So it’s a sex party,” I say to Mark.

“It’s not a sex party,” he replies. “Just because we’re getting dressed up and going to some strangers mansion for dinner with a group of random people we’ve never met doesn’t mean it’s a sex party.”

“Actually, I think it does.”
_____________________________________

So – Phase One of the night. Here we go.

Here is my handsome date saying cheese for a picture.

We arrive at the cocktail party fashionably late, walk in and survey the crowd. Three facts jump out immediately: 1. We know no one here. 2. Everyone else knows everyone here. 3. The only other people here in our tax bracket are the waitresses, the bathroom attendants, and an old, shifty looking security guard who is keeping a rack of free magazines under constant surveillance.

Mark and I look at each other and as if on cue say: “We’re going to need to be drunk for this.”

We approach the bar and I order a vodka and soda. Even the bartender looks rich, and I’m pretty sure he is flirting with me using only his eyes.

Bartender: “I don’t have soda. Only tonic.”

Carole: “Fine, I’ll just have the vodka.”

A few minutes later, Mark runs into the woman who invited him to the party. In our cab on the way over, Mark told me that we would be meeting two women who were the key organizers of the evening, both of whom were named Valerie. “So it’ll be easy: They’re all named Valerie. If you can’t remember someone’s name, just call them Valerie. Valerie. Valerie. Valerie.”

“Hey, Vanessa!” Mark shouts as the woman approaches. (This first embarrassing moment is sponsored by Vodka.)

The stylish, beautiful lady is wearing a cute, 1920’s style flapper hat. To try to cover for Mark not knowing her name, I quickly try to move the conversation forward. I comment on how much I like her hat and ask her where she got it.

“It’s vintage,” the woman replies.

“What?! Venice!?” I scream over the music.

“No, vintage!!!” she repeats.

The conversation is so awkward that Mark excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He comes back to find the two of us standing in the same spot, except now I have a mouth full of food, so no one is talking. Awesome.

Mark knows me well enough to be able to read panic in my eyes. He pulls me aside, telling Valerie that he has to borrow his girlfriend for a moment. Immediately I thank him. “I don’t know what happened,” I say while taking another swig of vodka. “I think I complimented her hat like five times.”

We decide the best course of action is to stand off to the side, taking up a posture of cool nonchalance (i.e. like on “The Hills”), the only problem being neither of us really gets the concept, so we end up standing in a corner next to what Mark thought was a table for drinks, but turned out to be a waiter’s stand for clearing trays. Classy.

Mark (clearly fed up with the situation) hands me his drink and disappears. So now I’m the weird chick standing next to the clearing tray with two drinks and no one to talk to. Except soon the waiter takes the tray, so all that’s left is some sort of makeshift table with a white table cloth draped over it.
Then I get a text message from Mark:

“I left. WILDCARD!”

(Of course he didn’t really leave, because if he had this post would be titled “And They’ll Never Find The Body, Either” and have a much more macabre tone. Still, classic Mark moment there.)

Twenty minutes later, it’s almost time to head over to our second destination. As everyone is mingling near the exit, we run into Valerie again. I proceed to have a nearly verbatim version of the conversation I’d previously had with her.

Carole: “I love your hat!”

Valerie: “Thanks. It’s vintage.”
_____________________________________

Phase 2: The Mansion

The alter-ego I have chosen for the night (because obviously being myself amongst the hoi polloi isn’t an option) is a non-fiction writer specializing in urban youth. After sending out text messages to some people for suggestions, Mark’s brother came back with the best: “You’re currently working on a book called Legit: The Urban Youth’s Struggle for Identity.” Personally, I preferred his other suggestion, Harrowing Home Invasions: The Unfathomable Crime, but Mark thought it might be “too dark” for dinner conversation. (Though I still beg to differ. Who doesn’t love a good home invasion story?)

We also decide that we need an escape plan just in case the event turns out to be even more awkward than anticipated.

“Let’s say we have a kid, and the babysitter called with an emergency,” I suggest.

“We can’t do that,” Mark retorts. “Vanessa knows I don’t have a kid.”

“You mean Valerie?”

“Whatever.”

“OK, then how about we’re babysitting someone else’s kid. And it called with an emergency.”

“Perfect.”

We roll into the gated 6 mile long driveway and pull up to the home listed on our invitation. Not only it is the biggest house on the block, it is the biggest house ever constructed.

As soon as we step through the door, I lose Mark. The house is immense – perhaps bigger on the inside than on the outside. Apparently, I veered right (looking for a bathroom) and Mark veered left (looking for the bar).

I approach a man who seems to know his way around to ask where the nearest bathroom is, but before I can open my mouth he yells, “Watch out behind you!” Not yet aware that there are works of art everywhere, apparently I’ve nearly backed into a sculpture. Not just any sculpture, though, but a cube of toothpicks held together by nothing more than the magic of art.

In other words “if you bump into it, it will fall apart.” I make a joke about thinking it was for the hor d'oeuvres, and the man introduces himself as the owner of the home and directs me to the commode. (Awkwardness: 1. Flying Under The Radar: 0.)

While I am admiring the bathroom’s pillowed walls (seriously, they were like couch cushions) Mark is entertaining a crowd of rich cougars out in the great room. After I leave the bathroom, I locate the bar and order some champagne, which was served in a pop-sized bottle with a straw.

As Mark mingled with the rich cougars (who clearly wanted to borrow him for 10 minutes), I absentmindedly toured the great room to admire the art ... and my champagne bottle suddenly bubbled over. Desperately trying to suck up the overflow before it could spill on the floor, I rushed off, mouth over champagne bottle top, to a different bathroom just as Mark goes the opposite way to begin looking for me.
With Mark and me, it’s “John Candy and Chevy Chase Go To A Dinner Party.”

A few minutes later, Mark finds me at the bar. “Where were you?” he asks.

“In the bathroom. My champagne bottle exploded", I said. "Check out this sculpture in the bathroom though.”

Mark: “You took pictures in the bathroom?”

Me: “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

Mark: “So many reasons?”

Me: (blank stare)

Regrouping, we decide to join the other guests on a tour of the mansion’s many works of art. The sheer diversity of the pieces alone is enough to make your head spin. Their philosophy as collectors was that art can be made out of anything:

Styrofoam:

Plaster:

Wood:

Even Water:

It’s not enough to admire art for its aesthetic quality, you have to wonder "WTF?" And to their credit, you do. You may say to yourself, “I could do that, but I would never think of doing that, at least not without a big, fat Quaalude.” It got to the point where Mark and I were paranoid that everything in the house was a work of art; no table was safe to put down your drink, no chair was safe to sit on. Even while I was in the ridiculously oversized bathroom, I thought, “What if I am peeing on a piece of art right now.”

In the end, though, the night proved to be an enjoyable experience. We met a plastic surgeon (Me: “Like Nip/Tuck?” Him: “Ha! No.”), an art dealer who had recently married his estranged secretary who he first fell in love with 26 years ago, and a guy from Israel who repeatedly brushed off his mega-hot girlfriend while talking with Mark and me, presumably to hear more about my harrowing writing career. (Him: “What do you write about?” Me: “Lots of things. Mostly social sciences. You know, urban youth.”)

Plus the problem of when it was polite to leave was solved for us when a drunk woman spilled her bottle of champagne on the pool table (OR IS IT ART?) and Mark and I looked at each other like, "That’s our cue", stopping only to shake the hosts’ hands and grab a few bags of homemade donut balls on the way out the door.

“Do you want to go to the afterparty at the rooftop bar?” I ask as we get in the cab.

“No, we should be getting home to our imaginary baby. Plus there’s still the sex party portion of the night.” (Wink.)

“Not happening, pal. This cow’s milk ‘aint for free.” :)

Moving on

2011-12-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

He pulled me tightly to him, holding on as though we could physically fight the decision we had just made.

“I’m so sad,” I managed to whimper, in between sobs.

He squeezed tighter. “So am I. You're one of the best people I have ever known."

I sobbed harder.

“Aw, Babe.” He held my face in his hands, looking down at me sweetly.

“You’re an extrovert with a great rack. You’ll be just fine – that’s a recipe for success right there!”

And for the millionth time since I've known him, he made me laugh…

And that’s how I choose to remember us.

When The Yuletide Is Not So Merry

2011-12-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

I hope for you that these next few days are good, time spent with family and loved ones, and a day to pause with thanks. We know for some these days are not easy, or it’s simply not that simple.

To anyone heavy with the weight of things missing or fractured this Holiday season, it doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful or not thankful.

It only means you’re human.

We can lose things in this life. Things are taken. Things break and leave and we are kept from what we love. We are kept from peace.

If this Holiday finds you more aware of what you’ve lost than what you have, this is for you, a note to say you’re not alone. There are others who feel what you feel.

Perhaps this Holiday finds you with the same faces as one year ago. And when they ask how you are or if anything is new, perhaps you wish you had some different answers. Answers that sound like change or pride or progress. Maybe you wanted this year to be about change but not a lot has changed. Maybe changes came but they were not the ones you hoped for.

It’s okay. Where you are and what you feel and what you wish was different. It’s okay.

You’re still here and these few days will pass. Things can still be new. There is room for healing and surprise ... and even room for change. Be brave. I hold my glass up to toast you as I offer the metaphorical cycling phrase I most say to myself. I offer you a heartfelt, "Hold your line".

RELOADED: Women Of The World: Unite!

2011-12-21T08:25:00.001-08:00

Ok Ladies. This will probably make you simultaneously laugh but also wince.... many of you have felt my pain - literally.

Men, once again - be glad you're MEN. I'm not suggesting you have no hardships, but let's call a spade a spade. As a general rule, it's the women who take the brunt of living.

Let me play out a recent morning's event for you.

9am. Bikini wax.

I am horizontal, naked from waist down, on table. No sheet to cover me, just sort of hanging out, no pun intended.
Aesthetician (aka - "the waxer") walks in, pushing cart with all kinds of wands and scrapers and tissues and cotton and a huge steaming bowl - which I can only assume is the hot lava about to boil my skin.

I don't have naked issues (swimmers usually don't) but I am not some exhibitionist either. I am marginally uncomfortable just sort of being exposed in a non-medicinal environment with a stranger, so I start to jabber and make conversation to alleviate my discomfort. She basically ignores me. Like a militant Russian, she grabs one of my knees and with force pulls it toward her so my legs are spread. (At least kiss me first?)

Without a word, Waxer rubs my crotch firmly with an anti-bacterial cloth. I try to get in the mood but somehow this isn't the fantasy I dream of.

Waxer: "This will burn".

No build up, no preparation, no hellos or smiles, just getting right down to business. I felt like a cheap prostitute in a foreign country. No foreplay, no talking, just immediate pounding.

Carole: "Ummm. Ok".

She clumps a heaping spoonful of boiling hot wax on my inner thighs as I hear my skin sear and crinkle.

Carole: "OUUUUUU"!!!

Waxer: "You will feel rip".

Indeed.
She pats a long white cloth strip onto the wax and with a swift tug, yanks that sucker off with no mercy.

Carole: "YEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW"!!!!!!!!!!

I notice some fur, clumps of skin and blood on the white cloth. I should have had a shot of whiskey before this torture.
Then she repeats procedure for other side.

Waxer: "All done" ... And she wisks out the door, never once even looking me in the eye.

Carole: "Thank you"... (I echo as the door closes behind her. If nothing else, I am always still polite) ....

I pull some soft pajama shorts up, commando style... no way I am wearing underwear right now ... and try to ignore the ripped skin and blood oozing from the sides of my legs... and I slowly walk out of there, hunched over, with a gait that makes me look like I'd been gang raped by a troop of baboons.

"A man will go to war, fight and die for his country. But he won't get a bikini wax."
- Rita Rudner -

And how was your morning????

Take That And Like It

2011-12-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

Dang. I was going to try to write this post entirely in one-letter words and abbreviations, but alas, that sh*t proved too hard. But, as losers tend to say, can't win 'em all! And so allow this loser (ahem) to reintroduce today's latest debacle: "Kiss my @ss, Walgreens and Others."

It was one of my recent routine mornings when I wake up and want Percocet sprinkled on my high-fiber cereal. Day 4 of flu with fever and I decided to call in the reinforcements. My throat was so sore I couldn't swallow anything - I tried to take a huge swig of OJ and it went down so long and hard even Heidi Fleiss couldn't relate. So, I called what I thought was my Walgreens to ask whether I had any refills left on a prescription or whether I was going to have to order it from Canada online. Anyway, the clock hit 8 a.m. and I made the call (PS -- I relish in how shady this sounds), very much unprepared for the salty little man-bitch on the other end.

Me: Hi, is this the pharmacy?

Man-Bitch: Uhhhh....yes. What is it?

Me: Oh, well sir, I was wondering, please, if I still had a refill left on my prescription...

Man-Bitch: Uhhhh...you know we just opened. I’m busy.

Me: [as politely as possible] Well, I know you just opened, thank you. My plan was to call when I knew someone would be there, i.e. when you opened...

Man-Bitch: Listen. I have work to do. You’re going to have to call back. [Hangs up.]

"Work to do?" I thought, as I tried to reconcile how helping out a paying customer did not qualify as "work to do" for a Walgreens pharmacist. "I will see this guy in hell before he hangs up on me again." And so I called back.

On the second go this stupid man-bitch was finally able to spare a literal minute of his precious time to help me, even though his help ended with him telling me that, in fact, I was the stupid bitch because I called the wrong Walgreens (zoinks!). While I admit "my bad" in this situation for not double checking the number before calling, I still think such ridiculously rude customer service on his part was uncalled for. And so, instead of hanging up and finding the correct number myself, I made this now smarter-than-I man-bitch provide me with the correct number, which he did after much huffing, puffing and unnecessary attitude.

But lest you think the rest of my morning was spent in prescription drug-induced splendor (it’s all legal, I swear!), there was yet another issue with which I had to deal -- the payment. When I did go to pick up my prescription at the correct Walgreens in Boulder (I have two refills!), the (actually very friendly) pharmacist said, "That’ll be $107.99."

Really? Can I at least get that with a bit of K-Y?

Renting A Date

2011-12-11T16:10:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks I'll be attending the wedding of my good friend, Jen, in Denver. (Jen is Polish and is having a Polish-theme wedding. This is an important fact for understanding the theme of this post.) There's a group of about 5 of us girlfriends who are going to Jen's wedding and, despite the fact I am the most entertaining of the bunch (hey oh!), I am the only one going sans date. Hmpft. All 4 of my chick-crew are married, leaving me as the wheel that they all drag along. I'm pretty independent but am really tired of going to these shin-digs alone year after year. My good friend Hilary, also attending the wedding, decided we needed to find some humor in the situation. So earlier this week we did just that.

We decided to try to rent a wedding date for me (yes, yes, rent a man) .... or at least find a way to get me laughing by pretending we were. We were damned determined to find a way to make this ongoing situation laughable. By the time we were almost finished wine bottle #2, our collective brainstorming had found it's path and we were ready for action.

As visions of "Valentine For Perfect Stranger" danced in our heads (you MUST watch this - we pee'd ourselves laughing so hard), we initiated The ~~Grand~~ Sub-Par Wedding Date Experiment of 2010.

Step 1: Put an ad up on Craig's List for 72-hours to see what you get:

Do you like vodka and Polish sausage?
A 40 year old attractive female looking for date to Polish-themed wedding in 4 weeks.

Must be able to initiate awkward, possibly offensive, conversations that may end in drinks being thrown in people's faces. Bonus points for real or feigned physical ticks or mild Tourette syndrome to make people I don't like uncomfortable.

Alcoholics and native Eastern-Europeans welcome. Trendy Euro mullets or Flock-of-Seagulls haircuts appreciated. If you're gay, that's OK, I just want a hot man on my arm as my night's trophy.

Please send a picture so I may judge you on your physical appearance. 'Tis the season!

Step 2: Wait for the replies to come pouring in.

And, man alive!, did they pour in. We received 14 within the span of 36 hours, 13 of which were accompanied by photographs and not all ugly! And I must say, while some of the responses scared the sh*t out of me, there were a couple that actually made me pause for a (split) second before deciding not to reply. Also, it was kind of amazing to see the multicultural response our little ad elicited for a Polish wedding. We received responses from:

2 black men (one American and the other from Africa);
1 Hispanic guy;
1 dude from "the Mediterranean region";
1 "fellow Euro trash" guy;
1 man who gave no information other than the fact that he goes by the name of "Kingmast";
7 various white dudes from the Denver metropolitan area; and
1 Middle Eastern fellow.

But on to the best part! In no particular order, here is a random sampling of some of our more entertaining responses and, of course, my reply email.

Him: I love vodka, I love sausage, and I will dance to polkas. My mom even played the accordian. I have the bona fides! I don't actually have Tourette's, but I admired Andy Kaufman's alter ego Tony Clifton, and I have improvisational comedy experience. ... Please advise! Patrick

Dear Patrick: Your resume sounds quite impressive, as is the photo you attached of yourself dressed up like the Cure's Robert Smith. Thank you also for informing that your "skin is not naturally that pale."

Him: I'm 24 and live in Aurora, CO. I don't have trouble meeting women, it just most of my opportunities to meet new women our at bars, and those aren't the type people I want to potentially date. And thats why I decide to check out craigslist. --Mike

Carole's Response:

Dear Mike: Wait, so let me get this straight. You're above meeting chicks you meet at bars but cool with going out with a sick freak who posted an ad requesting her date have Tourette syndrome? Yes? Oh, OK cool. Just wanted to make sure. PS -- Your command of English grammar and punctuation is superb.

Him: Well hello there fellow Euro trash, the polska party sounds like it'll be a blast... feed me a few drinks and I can be as much of 'that guy' as you can handle... have you seen the tourettes boy before? Wow I almost peed my pants. I am headed home for the holidays and am definitely looking to break back into the sophisticated Denver scene... this looks like the perfect opportunity... Tim

Carole's Response:

Dear Tim: I like that you're Eurotrash. That sh*t is tight. Your incontinence, however, could prove to be a party foul. Yet I am impressed with your ironic sense of humor -- "sophisticated Denver scene." LOL! Good one. One last question -- this "Tourette's boy" you speak of, is he free?

I love vodka! -- Zach

Carole's Response:

Dear Zach: I am stoked you love vodka. I love vodka too. But I am concerned that you may not be old enough to imbibe this libation we both so very much adore. But call me in three years.

Him: Hi. I actually do not like Vodca, I am a scotch man. OK, Here is the deal, if you need a date and/or if you would like to hook me up with one beautiful girl, I will come. And after the party in the evening the drinks will be on me. Sounds Like fun... Asrat

Carole's Response:

Dear Asrat: Actually, that sounds like the opposite of fun. No.

Him: Nothing like a big buck ni**er hanging out, clogging arteries and getting drunk with a couple of pollacks. -- Edward

Carole's Response:

Dear Edward: You are clearly a very elegant and eloquent man. Move the f*ck over Robert Frost, Edward's sh*t is so much tighter. But for serious, Edward, I'm guessing maybe you actually do have Tourette's? If so, then you, sir, are invited.

Him: Asshole! --Tariq

Carole's Response (never sent):

Dear Tariq: You had me at "ass." Your addition of "hole" shows me you care. You, sir, are hilarious on so many different levels. I mean, am I the asshole? Is that the Tourette's? You really got me thinking. And LOLing! Will you marry me?

Step 3: The Conclusion

As tempted as I was to actually write Tariq back, I decided against it. Now, before you get all riled up about my lack of follow-through, let me assure you that I came one click away from letting the proverbial Polish gowno hit the fan. But then Hilary talked me out of it. We'd had our fun...it was time to end the Reindeer games.

But to be brief like my new hero, Tariq, we decided against bringing any of these assholes as my date. And so I shall enjoy my vodka and Polish sausage alone, amid wedded bliss with my married friends, before I jet to the fertility clinic to freeze my eggs and later to Petco to buy 11 cats.

A Celebration and Boulder Playtime With Dave Scott

2011-12-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I do things without truly understanding my motives. Yesterday was one of those days. A few hours ago I asked myself, candidly, "Were you smoking crack??"

Allow me to digress. Tuesday night a small group of us met at West End in Boulder to celebrate and congratulate our friend, JZ, for her recent fricking amazing 2:43 marathon, an Olympic Trials qualification time. 2:43? Shitballs. I could do a 2:43 half. ? Add to the fact homegirl is 41 years old and faster than ever is nothing short of inspiring. Congratulations, Joanna. You deserve that, sister.

Me with Kelly Reed and Krista Shultz.

Joanna Zeiger, Jen Martinez and Kelly Reed (with Matty Reed's head popped in...silly!)

Matty, Kelly and Peyton Reed

Me with Shane Neimeyer and Krista Shultz

Okay. So I texted JZ later that night. Blame it on the Ambien combined with the quart of vodka chaser, perhaps, but I asked if I could join her when she next lifted at the gym. She texted back almost immediately. I've been running a bit more over the last few months....nothing noteworthy (relative to the Pro days) but several times a week of 45min-1:20 in length. I told JZ I'd not been finding any progress and I was frustrated. She told me she noticed my weak gluts lately and getting in the gym was needed. (I couldn't disagree. I know the truth when I hear it.) She told me she'd help me with some strength stuff after Dave's swim on Thursday (yesterday). Then my friend Krista (pictured above) told me she was going to Dave's swim too and I'd better be there. Oh man. Now I am getting called out.

I've not been swimming since June. Usually when you've been out of the pool for a while, you get back to things a bit slowly. You do a few solo swims for a couple weeks, start feeling a little better - THEN you go to Masters in Boulder. I say this so you understand the sheer idiocy of going to DAVE SCOTT's Masters session when I've not been in the pool in months. The top swimmers in our sport go to his practice and though I've never been one to compete in practice or care how fast anyone else is, it's not exactly a high self esteem situation when you're getting your ass absolutely kicked by fit, gorgeous people while you're feeling like shit. Was I HIGH to put myself in that situation?

That's like stepping into the ring for a boxing match with Sugar Ray Leonard without any gloves and little boxing experience.........also on live TV with everyone watching.

I walked out to the pool deck and stood on the ledge ready to jump in, and I waved hello to Dave.

Dave: "Where have YOU been?!"

Carole: "I know...."

Dave: "Been eating the pizza a bit, I see..."

I laughed and knodded my head. (I'm not exactly lean these days, it was true, how could I not laugh?) Teasing comes with the territory with Dave and no one is immune. Plus he's a pretty funny dude. He'll target himself too though so it all evens out. And I dish out the teasing all the time to others - so I'd better be able to take it when it's dished at me.

I was warming up and the pool started swarming with people. Holy crap. Each lane gets PACKED. There are like 8-9 people to a lane. Way too many. This was a zoo. It was crazy. Every star pro triathlete and age grouper galore was in attendance today too. Lovely.

We all stood at the wall - the pool packed full of sardines - awaiting Dave's instructions. I will say, probably the best part of Dave Scott's Masters in Boulder is this part about to happen. There will be a monologue of some sort at the start of practice post warmup. He'll pick people out in the crowd, roast people, make fun of people, it's always pretty funny. Especially when he targets those with big egos (ummmm, everyone?). It takes people down a notch and that's needed around here.

Dave: "Wow. Look at this today. I counted 52 people. Take a look at this talent pool. Let's see how many World Champions, Ironman champions and Olympians are here today!"

Everyone laughed. Then he said the best line of the day..

Dave: "Raise your hand if there is someone in your lane you don't like..."

Hands went up like crazy, and everyone laughed. (Now THAT was funny!!) Boulder has many great aspects, but this is a small, small town, with very type-A competitive personalities. It can be a tough place and one of the things I do not particularly love about it. There are definitely good people here, but there are hurtful aspects that are undeniable. You need to watch your back in Boulder and any environment like that is not one I particularily respond to well.

In any event, I somehow survived Masters. At one point when I was huffing and puffing at the wall, Dave stood over me.

Dave: "How you feeling, Carole?"

Carole: "Like a beached whale..."

Dave: "That's what you get for staying out so long!"

Yeah yeah yeah.... :)

After Masters I headed to the weight room with JZ who was kind enough to have set aside time just to watch me and give me some exercises to work on. Things are worse than we thought. I am SO completely inflexible that I'm not even strong enough to be doing weights, or even drills. I've got to get my hips and hamstrings loosened up or all I am going to be doing is compensating and never getting to the weaker muscles. My stronger muscles dominate the weaker ones and we can't get things to fire. "You can't run well and are not making progress because you're body isn't capable of it in this state. Until you can get better range of motion, all the drills you're doing are useless because you can't do them correctly", JZ said.

She is right. Sometimes we only look at the goal of doing a drill or exercise, but unless we're capable of doing it correctly, we don't relize that all our work is pretty much getting us nowhere. Sure, I can do knee lifting drills and squats through tomorrow, but if I am arching my back to do them because that's the only way my body will 'lift my knee', then it's an ineffective drill. If the drill won't engage other muscles needed for power and efficiency, it is USELESS.

I went on the True Stretch machine and she was literally cementing my hips in place, holding me with full force, to try to help me do even simple stretches correctly. "You are way too tight. No wonder you can't lift your knees. You are too locked up. This is where you need to start."

So..........I am now on mission: STRETCH. I am in basic movement 101. We're talking JUST getting my hips to move and open.

It's extremely humbling. But at least I have a vision that makes sense to me and can help explain my complete lack of progress.

Let's see how this goes.

The Mountain and Molehill

2011-12-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

Reloaded from December 2010:

I didn’t have bad skin as a teenager. By some genetic fluke, I remained nearly blemish free throughout nature’s most awkward years. On the flip side of that coin was a penchant for fly away wings, tapered leg jeans and a rapid teenage weight gain. The universe made sure to punish me.

For over a year I've been making jokes about being premenopausal. The night sweats, hot flashes, thinning hair, cravings for sweets, wacked out monthly cycles and erratic hormonal shifts - they all point to the same thing: the dawn is coming!

I'll joke with my beloved boss, Charlie. The teasing between us initiated years ago, I've grown to love our relationship full of laughter. Most of the jokes are at my expense - but I'm the one normally leading the charge. It’s funny stuff and if you can’t laugh at yourself, hmmm, well I guess laugh at someone else. :) But I usually laugh at myself.

Carole: "Dude, I am on a freight train to menopause! I can't stop crying and I woke up sweating this morning in my 30 degree room...."
Charlie: *laughing*
Carole: "…my periods are now 2 days of nothing and then a day of Niagara Falls!"
Charlie: "Maybe you're just a freak?"
Carole: "No way, I'm menopausal!"
Charlie: "Probably so. You're old!"
Ha! :)
Most of the women in my family encountered perimenopause in their late 30's, so I've been more than ready for this. Bring it on!

Oh yea? Bring it ON, Carole? Crazy hormonal shifts, indeed....

This brings us to nearly two weeks ago, when I woke up with a little malfunction at the junction of Skin and Pore Streets. Or as I say, at the corner of Holy and Shit. I wouldn’t have paid it much attention, but it was the day before I was to leave for Portland to attend some important meetings for work. My to-do list had said nothing about an angry adult zit, so I was wholly unprepared. I did a little internet scouring about homeopathic remedies and came to the conclusion that putting toothpaste on my face was just a poor decision.

I needed to do whatever necessary to stop the spreading of this sucker. By now my one huge zit had turned to three! **PANIC**

Were zits contagious? Were they like plantar warts that spread if you touched them? I had little experience with this.

I bolted to the store to pick up a tube of goop. In the skin cream aisle I was confronted with a whole list of products that had previously never crossed my radar. Wrinkle cream, exfoliants, face masks that promised to devoid you of puffy eyes, the whole lot. I bypassed them all, looking for something, anything, to scoop out the byproduct of my geritol-needing hormones. I grabbed the tube promising to do the trick (plus it would help with vaginal itching? BONUS!).

That night I put a lump of the goop on my face, right over the huge red mountain. Then I attacked the other two molehills. I kind of smeared it around everywhere, thinking that if one pore had instigated a riot, it was possible that others might join in the fray. I brushed my teeth and put my suitcase beside the door. I laid out my airplane clothes and packed my purse with essential reading material. Then I crawled into bed and turned out the light.

At 3:27am I woke up from a dream where someone was dropping lighter fluid on my face while I tried to light an outdoor grill. It took me a minute to realize that the lighter fluid was code for HOLY BALLS MY FACE IS ON FIRE. I jumped out of bed! In the bathroom I grabbed a hand towel, shoved it under the cold faucet and pressed it against the side of my face, only to watch perfectly circular swatches of skin be wiped away with blood welling up in the wake of the hand towel.

It took me nearly half an hour to get my face to stop bleeding and another fifteen minutes before I had calmed down enough to go back to bed. The scene wasn’t any better in the morning, either. The nickel-sized ulcerations had spent the rest of my slumber scabbing over, something near impossible to cover without industrial strength makeup and a healthy dose of Photoshop.

Without enough time to drive to MAC Cosmetics, I resigned myself to dabbing thick layers of loose powder over my face. I figured one of the airports I would be in that day would surely have some liquid heavy duty makeup.

Not so much. So that day I got to introduce myself to everyone with a plague on my face that looked like someone had put out cigars on me. It looked like I had leprosy. With every new introduction I wanted to explain that the scabby looking monstrosities were not an indication of my usual appearance and to please forgive me for looking like I just took up a meth habit.

Cheers to my social career-defining day… and, of course, the journey to Menopause!

Reloaded: Unanswered Questions

2011-12-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

If Oprah thinks it's a good idea to rebroadcast one of her better shows from the past, I can follow suit. Here is one of my favorite posts from 2 years ago.

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Saturday night I attended a company holiday party with my friend from Atlanta, Mike Thompson, VP of an IT company HQ'd in Denver. Several of the VP's live out-of-state and flew in for this big event and Mike invited me to join the evening. The party was at some ritzy house in Castle Rock; one of those places where you wondered if you were in the home of an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune? It was a gorgeous place decorated in modern art deco; a design aesthetic that embraced clean lines and classic principles. Party "staff" refilled my wine glass and took away my used plate as a pianist played lovely classical melodies in the background. I continued to tease Mike that I would no doubt embarrass him at some point in the evening. "You can't bring a girl from the ghetto to a place like this!", I would whisper to him as he laughed.

At some point during the evening, I discreetly made my way to the bathroom. Upon arrival I stood stone-faced, horrified by the sight before me. There it was. Next to the toilet.

A bidet.

Oh Lord... what to do?... To bidet or not to bidet? Now that is the question. It was a holiday party but this had nothing to do with the holidays and it's not a question that spreads good will and cheer, but it’s one that lingers and burns. I stood there motionless, staring with an intense and curious gaze similar to when one first sees a platypus. WHAT is THAT?

Like an airplane phobic who doesn't fly, I have never used the thing. I disliked even looking at it. I have no idea why. It's not as if I'd suffered bidet trauma. It's just so foreign to me. So... French (no offense to the baguette, brie and Givenchy). But I'm Italian. We eat meatballs. We bury money. We kill people. That's what we do. We don't clean our asses by way of a spicket. (Perhaps we should!)

I thought I would have my hands full with the evening itself. I can typically handle myself in just about any situation; the social elite usually don't throw my game beyond recovery, but these were important work colleagues to Mike. I wanted to make a good impression on his behalf.... But bidet boot camp seemed like more than I could handle. How would I do it? What would I tell them? I didn't know the first thing about bidet usage.

For starters, did you straddle it, ride sidesaddle, or — in the delightful words of rapper Juvenile — "Back that ass up?" ??
Does one plant oneself in the bowl or simply hover? Did men use it differently than women? And at what age does one start bideting?

I was at a total loss. I grabbed my phone from my purse and made an effort for guidance. My personal 911 for any situation. I attempted to call JZ and Mark for the step-by-step playbook for this situation. They would get me through it. Aaakkkkkkkk!!! There was no cell coverage from the mansion-on-the-mountain bathroom. I panicked, ashamed at my ignorance and bolted out of there like I stole something.

Oh wait, this story gets better.

I quickly scanned rooms in an effort to find Mike to tell him of my ordeal. Most women (with class) would have probably kept that private anxiety attack to themselves, but I am not such a woman. I like to reveal my inadequacies. :) Unfortunately the party hostess located me first. She noticed my anxiety and, unfortunately for me, misunderstood its root cause.

"I'm so sorry", she anguished apologetically. "I ran out of towels earlier".

"Excuse me?", I asked, confused. There had been plenty of toilet paper.

This poor woman was genuinely upset. She looked at me with regret to say, "I'm sorry I didn't have bidet towels."

Bidet towels?????

"Oh, that's ok", I tried to comfort her, "I didn't need them". ?? What else do you say??

Not only did I have no intention of using the contraption, WHAT were bidet towels???? Was there some type of new-age sanitary concept about which I had not been made aware? I mean, I realize I now live in BOULDER where everything is organic and green and environment-conscious. But you used TOWELS for the thing?? Where would you put the towels after use?? I was not used to discussing toilets and wiping and compost, or anything else related to the ass, when visiting a mansion but apparently tonight was my night. (Note the disclaimer: I don't discuss these things "when in a mansion"...)

I didn't know what the towels were but more to the point, the fact that she "ran out" alerted me that people had been bidet'ing all evening! This was even more frightening. No wonder people were having such a good time - the party started in the bathroom - LITERALLY!

I was marginally freaked out. What were the rules? More importantly, what was the appropriate thread count for a human genitalia towel? These were vital questions. Perhaps I will never know.

Here's hoping your holidays were happy, and hygienic.

Catching Peanuts In Your Mouth

2011-11-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

The last couple weeks I've been watching old premieres of Saturday Night Live. Thankfully they replay such things on various channels which is why I occasionally get moderately caught up with this supposed icon of pop culture.

The host for the evening was Dane Cook. Yippee. I’m actually a pretty big fan. His dry, deadpan humor combined with his masterful grasp of physical comedy is reminiscent of the great John Ritter. The thing is, for the first five minutes of his super lengthy opening monologue, all I could think was a) he is much funnier than this, he's off his game today, and b) did no one tell him his shirt’s too tight? Because he wasn’t really that funny and his hips kept moving in strange quasi-flamboyant movements. Plus, and I know I’ve mentioned this already, his shirt was too tight. As in so tight I could tell he’d laid off the crunches the past few weeks and maybe it was time to go up a waist size in jeans. Which sucks for him because he’s not a chubby man. He’s not even a super flabby man. But when your shirt is 87% spandex with a little cotton thrown in to dull down the sheen, you have to be very secure in the fact that you’ve spent a lot of time in the gym or you’ve got a personal assistant who doubles as your emergency liposuctionist.

I was getting ready to change the channel because MY GOD this was the longest opening monologue I have ever seen on SNL and I could be doing important things like lint rolling my ironing board. I hadn’t managed to crack a smile through the opening act of politically correct holiday celebrations and my Cook chap was certainly not tickling my fancy or my funny bone. But then he started his next bit and I stopped my finger from pressing the channel change because, well, I wanted to see where he would take this.

He launched into a bit about erections and I mentally rolled my eyes because I totally expected him to go with the beaten-to-death (no pun intended) joke surrounding those pills that help men get their thingee up and the ensuing joke about “if you have an erection lasting four or more hours...” Funny the first time and, if I’m really honest, funny the five-hundreth time, but still not funny for a renowned comedian to add in their act.

But he took it in a totally different direction, not mentioning the thingee-lifting hydraulic pills but instead talking about a really dandy stiffy he’d had one day while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Don’t ask me what I found so funny about a PB&J stiffy but it kind of made me snort a little. Noticing a can of cashews he pops the top and places a delicately curved and salted nut right on the tip, pulls back his member and flings the unsuspecting cashew towards his head where he catches the nut between his pearly whites. At this point I’m actually laughing out loud because This Man Be Crazy.

Cut to commercial and my laughter dies down. I think this situation through. And then it fully dawns on me that Dane Cook has admitted on national television that he ATE A CASHEW FLUNG FROM THE TIP OF HIS PENIS. I’m still finding the situation amusing but am now very concerned about his personal hygiene. This also gives the term "salted nuts" a whole new meaning to me.

It's difficult to avoid the visual, huh?

Lost Breadcrumbs Along The Path

2011-11-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve had crying kids lost in stores cling to my hand. Children giggle at me over Mommy’s shoulder. And every once in awhile a child in a crowd spontaneously comes up and hugs me.

As a teenager and in my early 20's, I dreamed of being a mother. I think a lot of that was the masked vision of just wanting a family again. Nonetheless I dreamed, and still do, one of those wonderfully domestic scenes of a large dinner table with a lazy susan in the middle with hands of all kinds reaching in – boys and girls, biological and adopted children, foster children, and even foreign exchange students. When I turned 22 and moved to Los Angeles from the East Coast, I was a nanny for a 6 month old little boy, the child of two Hollywood producers, and I quickly fell in love with him. When I held him in my arms, there was some sort of transference between us. I believed with everything in me I would give birth to at least one child, but probably several, in my lifetime.

When it came time to abort the dream of a career in acting & comedy, I knew I wanted to be a teacher—the perfect career for a woman who wanted to have a family. I became a high school teacher for a few years in Santa Monica, CA.

As I sit today to survey the landscape of my life, loves lost and dreams dashed, quite honestly, I thought I would have a family by now. It is a bizarre reality; a destined path that was somehow averted. Have I failed? Succeeded? Am I right where I am supposed to be? If not, then what?

Things do not always work the way you think they will...... and hope they will..... and pray they will. And you must adapt. Somewhere along the line I shed the dream of a family. At times it was a conscious decision; other times not. I think I just gave it up as it became apparent that the dream wasn’t going to happen. Part of me reasoned that it was pointless to dream of kids without a husband in the picture — a kind of putting the cart before the horse.

Almost two decades have sped by since I was a nanny. Hundreds of kids sat in desks in front of me in my classroom, but none sit at my dining room table.

This summer I turned 40. Forty, single and childless.
I miss family life and I do not like living alone. No more transient roommates for me, as they are not at all the same as family who grow together. My next roommate will be my husband. That may mean I am alone forever. Super.

Who knows if I am even able to have children – now or ever. The reality of ever having my "family" dimishes with each day that goes by.
A couple days ago a friend told me she had mentioned me to her male friend, a 42-year old venture capitalist who travels frequently but was based in Denver. His response, "How old is she?" Normal question, I suppose - but upon hearing I was "40" he was turned off. (ummmm, he is 42!??) He still wants children, and I am out of his age range acceptable profile. Right.

Forty, single and childless. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t lived, that I’m still that little girl praying for life to happen, doing things to try to make life happen but coming up with no results. At other times I feel like the excitement of life is in the past, that my opportunities have passed.

Unfortunately this blog post will not have an inspirational message or a redeeming thought to leave us with hope. This is my blog so I get to write whatever I want. It's no secret that this time of the year is very difficult for me. My normal snarky, bitter demeanor (I'm kidding - I usually am quite upbeat) takes on a whole different level of inconsolable malaise more powerful than any drug or therapist or volunteering can help. Trust me, I've tried. I don't want to be an orphan who is invited to sit vigil at someone else's family tradition. I don't want to be an outsider. I want my OWN tradition(s), my own roots. I want to be a part of something meaningful. If I am not there, it would actually be noticable and something would be wrong. It doesn't make me crazy to desire these things, it makes me HUMAN. All I have ever wanted, truly wanted, since I was 15 years old, was to have my family. I don't dream of a BMW. I don't dream of a huge mansion. I dream of belonging somewhere. I look around at other people who have it, many who don't appreciate it, so why can't I have it? Can't someone who has nothing have a tiny bit? Or will those who have a lot just continue to get more? The reality of this is so sharp it stings my eyes.

Life is full of variety. There isn’t a set timeline and way life is supposed to happen. We're all just doing the best we can, and trying to figure it all out as we go...

Cheers to you and your journey. Be good to one another.
Oh, and happy holidays - you bastards. :) (I knew a sarcastic quip would find its way onto the post!)

Embrace The Insolence

2011-11-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

Though I am, arguably, among the most immature acting of my friends, it is all an effort to stay youthful. I'd always heard that I would never feel 40 when I turned 40. I have to say, that theory is a crock of horse manure. I most definitely feel older - and not that overnight I all of a sudden felt the 4th decade upon my birthday like a rites of passage. I just mean that I most definitely do not feel 20. The hot flashes, waking up each morning having to stretch out the kinks each day that my previous day's benign movements don't seem to warrant, the creaky bones, cravings, tougher getting in and out of a car (I've actually been noticing this), insomnia, hoo-hah dryness (yes!)...... OYE! The only way I can prevent the physical demise is by pretending it isn't happening, hence my flagrant immaturity.

But time is ticking forward. How do I know for sure....really for sure? Aside from physical changes, I know by the way I react to things. Specifically, I now roll my eyes at "teenagers".

This is the beginning of my long, slow death towards the retirement village. Rolling my eyes at the 'youth'? When did I get old enough to consider myself separate from this group? It has happened....

And so, let it be. As an example to illustrate this fact, I've still not gotten over our recent Halloween. Allow me to recount.

Few things chap my ass more than these damn modern teenagers who don’t know when to hang up the pillowcase and stop trolling for free candy on Halloween.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to doling out some boxed raisins or wintergreen lozenges to a 3-year old in a Ronald Reagan costume but I get pretty incensed when some pock-marked 18-year old smelling of bong water and underarm odor shows up at my door with an insolent scowl and a demand for free food.

Back when I was growing up, we teenagers didn’t harass our neighbors for unearned sweets – we were too busy holding down jobs, harvesting crops or serving in the armed forces overseas (hey oh!). But nowadays it seems these teens trick or treat into their mid-twenties. Half the damned “kids” that bang on my door are over six feet tall, have a five o’clock shadow and voices deeper than Rosie O'Donnell. Really?

And, honestly, if you insist on coming to my door looking to score some candy at least put some effort into it. These damned teens refuse to say “trick or treat,” won’t make eye contact and sure as hell don’t bother with costumes. They just roll their eyes and stick a sack under my nose while text messaging their location to other scurrilous moochers in search of easy prey. If they intend to carry on with this shameless behavior the least they could do is dress like hobos or – perhaps more accurately – petty thieves.

And to add insult to indignity, they’re pounding on my door at 9 o’clock when I’m already in my flannel duck jammies and well past the time that most legitimate trick or treaters have already gone home, gorged themselves senseless and thrown up on the rug.

Be advised that any damned teenager who shows up at my door next Halloween won’t be getting anything but a copy of the want ads, directions to the local military recruitment center and a cane to the side of the head.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.... aging .......

Manipulating Men

2011-11-15T20:56:00.000-08:00

If you are a married gal, this information may be of great use to you. If you are a lady who is grappling with a boyfriend, this article can help you to handle your boy toy better. And if you are a guy, be warned…the lady of your life might be reading this too.

On this blog post we will look at how a woman can dominate her man and enslave him. If you are a woman and don`t have the time to read this whole thing, here is the gist:
Give a man enough "love" (yes, the verb) and he will be your slave.

If you are still reading, it means you are a woman and have time on your hands…so let us continue.

Since I have been a woman for the last four decades, I obviously cannot speak firsthand to the experience (and mind) of a man. My male friends have always assured me that they've never looked at a girl and said: “Wow, just look at her…she is intelligent!”
To that point, my friend and teammate, Jamie Bull, furthers, "I am an ass man", he said. "If I am checking her out, it's her lower half first".

Indeed. Most men look at a woman like a sex object. They might not agree (publicly), but most single men will have sex with any woman if only they had a place. Most men have fallen into this descriptor at one point in their life. A place with a good mattress & air conditioning would be even better, because he can go to sleep immediately after.

But if you are a woman…a lot of factors contribute to the trigger. To present a metaphor to my readers, sex for women is like fire. For it to begin… one needs to provide the right amount of oxygen (money), fuel (money) and the spark to ignite (money). If you notice, after the fire is over…nothing remains. Comedienne Alonzo Bodden has said, “They are working on Viagra for women. Are they crazy? It has been around for 100s of years – it is called cash.”

But this blog is intended to be an aid for the women... Once you have given your man all the sex that he needed (clearly he deserves that), you need to tell him what you want. (Okay, okay - yes, you should tell him this BEFORE, but just go with the humor of the blog post, would ya?) A man can`t read a woman`s mind and don`t expect him to try…that`s very difficult. According to my happily married teammate, Ryan Oilar, "Men struggle even after three years of marriage to read her mind!"

Ladies, take heed. If you don`t ask…you won`t get anything and all your efforts go wasted.
So, when asking for what you want, ensure these simple steps:

Step 1: Check to confirm your man hasn`t fallen asleep after.

Step 2: Time yourself and start speaking. A lecture of anything less than 3 hours will not yield results…men start listening only after the first 150 minutes because then they know if its that long it is a cause for concern.

Step 3: When you ask him to do anything, don`t be polite. Order. Strong, powerful men love to be ordered around.

Step 4: Give him one stress ball in each hand and ask him to relax (this will also keep him from sleeping too).

Step 5: If he still feels sleepy, grab both the balls in your hands and leave him crying. I meant the stress balls.

The Emotion, The Body and The Self

2011-11-11T19:51:00.000-08:00

I think I am going to start calling Carmen, my oh-so-zen yoga instructor, "Yoda" instead. I've mentioned before that she tends to throw rhetorical zingers at us during her class. I don't think I've ever encountered an environment where so many thought provoking statements were hurled at me, and so frequently. If you are looking for induced self and life reflection, Carmen's class is for you.

She begins each class with an intention, something to focus or work on during our "practice". Tonight was a zinger, for sure. She sets a calm, unthreatening tone right away; it's a space that somehow feels safe. I don't know how she does this so immediately with a roomful of strangers but I am inspired by that lesson. We sat indian style awaiting her wisdom as we closed our eyes and took in deep breaths. She has some sort of intuition with me tonight, that's for sure. It's almost eerie that she chose these words on this evening to speak to my spirit - or maybe my spirit is just listening.

"What part of your body needs attention? What needs protection and a little extra care right now? What needs to be healed?", she inquired.

Normally I would think the obvious stuff like 'my si joint' or 'my shoulder' ...... this time the response was deeper. This time I answered to myself, "my heart".

As if on cue, Carmen launched into her wisdom. "Human beings store our emotions in our bodies", she said. "If we feel something that we’re not ready to express – perhaps because of fear or confusion - then usually we repress it. The emotion gets filed away in the “deal with later” pile and we forge on. But the body doesn’t forget. If these emotions go unaddressed, then they start to manifest in other ways. It’s like they’re saying “Hey! Remember me? I need you to pay attention!” We may feel pain, stiffness, cramping, or other general discomfort. And then we try to figure out what we did to cause it . . . was it my workout yesterday? Or lack thereof? Was it from sitting too long in the car? Perhaps it’s old age setting in? We tend not to consider that it could be something 'inside' causing the discomfort".

Oh man. This class was going to be a doozy. I took a deep breath and on her command went into downward dog pose.

As the class went on she encouraged, "Surrender: Just let it be. Let go of trying and breathe into where you are in the moment . . . "

Sartre said that hell is other people, and that when it comes down it, we are all essentially alone. No one else, but ourselves, can live our lives, or fight our battles, or make our decisions, or find our enlightenments. To depend on others to do this for us is beyond foolish.

The Buddhists, on the other hand, posit that hell is not so much other people but the way we react to them. And while I agree with Sartre that it all comes down to what we do for ourselves, I also know that there is a great gift in community, in being with others. The flip side of the suffering that other people – our reactions to other people – elicit in our lives is that we can find some comfort in their very presence.

I have been so fortunate for my chosen community. My closest friends have proven to be reliable listeners and advisers. I take great solace in knowing that this support is there for me. But I still have to do all the work by myself. My sweet cousin and sister-substitute Michelle does a great job generating questions for me to ponder. But the fact is, I alone have to come up with the answers. And to consider that, for me, there may not be any.

I am by no means a Buddhist, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think many of their beliefs were thought provoking.

Buddhism is based on Four Noble Truths.
1. Life is suffering.
2. There is a cause for this suffering.
3. It’s possible to end this suffering
4. There is an established path out of this suffering.

Or to put it in more modern terms,
1. Life sucks.
2. It’s our own fault that it sucks.
3. It’s possible for it not to suck.
4. Help is on the way!

Hard times are inevitable, but sometimes they take us by surprise. But there’s no escape. As the old adage goes, the only way out is through. The first step is acknowledging the pain itself, as well as the source of the pain. “I am suffering, and it’s my own damn fault.” Before you argue that plenty of random incidents are NOT the victim’s fault (I agree, I agree) let me restate that it’s how we REACT to what life throws at us that can cause the suffering, not the incident itself.

So what do we do? We embrace the suffering, let ourselves fully experience the (for lack of a better word) suckitude. Acknowledge that there is a cause – that this didn’t happen randomly, but because of an intricate series of events and words and feelings – and that our own choices (or inability to make choices) is at least part of the problem. “Okay, this is hard. There is no getting around that. My life is going to be a firestorm of emotions for a while, most likely through the holidays, and I’m just going to have to ride it out, do the best I can, and see where I come out in the end.”

And the Buddhists assure us that there is a path out of suffering. I hope this applies to all of us. (Especially to a Catholic... :) )

"Cool Chick" = compliment?

2011-11-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was chatting with a couple friends (one male and one female), discussing a party the male friend and I had been to a few years ago when I lived in Atlanta. At said party, after male friend encouraged me to stand on top of one of the tables to get a better view of the band playing, I was quickly pegged in the face with a can of cashews. It sucked. Anyway, upon recounting this story in front of the female friend, she asked why she hadn't been invited. My male friend immediately responded, "Oh, I would never bring ladies to this sort of party." I wasn't sure if I was complimented or insulted. Then he looked at me and made a lame excuse about me being "cooler" than most girls. Later that night, I was told by a *different* male friend that, despite all of his attempts, I was impossible to gross out, unlike other girls who are squeamish and easily repulsed.

So I started thinking - men like the "cool chicks", right? Or do they? They say they do - but do they REALLY?

I’ve dated lots of “types” of guys (and I don’t mean Asians). After starting out my romantic career wasting time with the same kinds of guys, I made a conscious effort to take myself out of my comfort zone (easy, blonde haired surfer dude type) and try something different (easy, brown haired guy with no high school diploma). This inevitably led to my "Greek Period" in my mid-twenties, which was more cheerful than it sounds, but less productive because I couldn’t get behind most of their regional cuisine after spanakopita. Lamb? Can't do it.

Anyway, I took myself back to a pivotal story. I once knew a girl (she was the girlfriend of my male friend) who was absolutely ungrossoutable. It was at her apartment in college where I learned, during one of their diatribes, that men feel the vagina is the most simultaneously fascinating and terrifying organ, the Christopher Walken of genitalia.

Their relationship was one of complete openness. Comparing armpit smells, leaving the door open while peeing, and farting indiscriminately. She retold that once she rushed into his apartment, closed the door behind her, and broke a long, loud wind with an audible sigh of relief, then said, “I held that for two blocks because I thought you’d like it.”

They broke up not long after that incident. ‘That incident’, in retrospect, may have been their turning point. Because while it’s true that the guy did like it (he laughed for hours, even giggling when he told us about it), it may have subconsciously tipped his Fart/Attractiveness scale, leaving her on the wrong side of the smelly divide. Maybe if men were still cavemen he could have looked past it, even casting her quirkiness in a positive light (Heat! Fuel!) .... but soon enough he would be graduating college, going off into the real world of polo shirts and clenched butt cheeks. And she had crossed over from fun-loving to troublesome, from viable to stinky.

So how does this relate to me being "the cool chick" ?? I'm glad you asked. I've been thinking of this. As much as it may sting my poop loving soul, it probably wouldn’t hurt me to feign disgust the next time my male friends take me to a donkey sex party. A subtle “I can’t believe that midget didn’t wash his hands before serving the sangria,” should do. Just enough to say, “I’m girly enough to buy fancy underwear but I can still take a cashew tin to the face.”

In the end, I need to be sure they still know I am a GIRL.

Encounters in a coffee shop

2011-10-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

My married friends tell me all the time, "Carole, you could meet a man anywhere, anytime." Mmm hmmm. That's true. I respond, "Yes, losers are abound. It's meeting the quality that gets tough."

Yesterday I sat in the coffee shop, curled up with a good book. I couldn't help but notice as he walked in, his scent a distinctive cologne. He looked ridiculous and cocky; as incredulous as that sounds, in his pale blue Oxford shirt with it's cuffs rolled tightly to the elbow. They appeared to be holding on for dear life, choking the blood supply there and swelling his forearms into great purple eggplants that I had an odd urge to slice and serve up, parmigiana style.

His Ray Ban aviators, relics of the eighties, no doubt, were perched precariously on a shellacked bed of graying hair. I could almost hear him speaking to his reflection in the morning: "You're a silver fox. You've got some miles on you, but ladies love an experienced man. These aviators, they're the ticket. They're the glue that holds this ensemble together. There. Now they're perfectly placed atop my head. I can't slide them down over my eyes or it will ruin the look. I'll squint in the sunlight, but I'll look cool. This is it. The pinnacle of fashion. I'm ready for you, Ladies." He would then glide out the door to his convertible . . .whatever. Porshe, BMW, Mercedes. Something foreign. No Mustangs for the Silver Fox. Something expensive that subtley screams Mide-Life Crisis.

His plaid pants of hunter green and navy blue clashed horridly with his shiny black loafers and George Hamilton tanned ankles. They didn't do much for the shirt either. But they hung perfectly with a crease the military would envy tracing his leg from thigh to foot. He walked with purpose and determination. An important man with places to be and people to ignore. I was surprised when he eased himself into the uncomfortable chair beside me and threw out a cheap line meant to amuse, or perhaps enthrall: "So . . . .come here often?" I sighed loudly as I rolled my eyes heavenward. I smiled at him, thinking to myself, 'this was going to be the longest coffee of my life'....

Was that really only 10 miles?

2011-10-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

Want to be really humbled? Do an event which is double the distance you've done for many, many months. Good call, Sharpie!

A few days ago I coerced my Denver-based buddies, Rev3 teammate Anthony Beeson ("AB") and my world traveling hero, Kyle Bauman ("KB"), to do a 10-mile trail run race with me. (Readers may remember my previous blog post about Kyle who traveled the globe last year. Check it out here! )

AB is a former collegiate runner, so KB and I knew he'd be done long before us, probably having had a shower with a loofah. Nonetheless, we wanted to have a fun run together in what turned out to be a near record breaking 75 degree day in Denver at the end of October. Love it.

The morning of the race:

I've been looking for a new passion. I'll probably never get on my bike again - I haven't given up but I really think my demons are beyond what even I can tackle. If I never ride again, the world won't end - and it will probably be an even better world. I certainly have had enough of hospitals and broken bones to last me a lifetime. Recently I've tried taking up knitting. The fuzzy yarn is nice but it lacks a bit of the adrenaline rush. So I'm trying to get into trail running.

As we expected, AB dusted us.

My sense of humor remained in tact throughout the day. In typical Carole fashion, I talked to everyone with an encouraging, "GOOD JOB!" whenever someone went by. (I rarely went by anyone, let's get real...) One of the highlights was this view I got for more than half the race. The 3 guys in Scottish kilts cracked me up, and kept me laughing....

I was definitely in the back of the packs, but I was keeping the fun in mind.........

The terrain was surprisingly challenging........or maybe I am just out of shape. ?? Naaaaaaaaa, it was the terrain!!! Here is Kyle bolting down one of the descents:

In the end, we all had a great time and enjoyed the beautiful Colorado sunshine. The beautiful Fall golden and vibrant yellow leaves is a sight to behold. Truly, I've not seen a more beautiful place than Colorado this time of year. It even rivals the Northeast, which I thought was impossible.

At the end of the run, I did what I truly do best:

AB and KB "weren't hungry" right after the run. ?? pppffft. I dove right into that pizza, uninhibited.
Thankfully I at least have SOME skill in this world!!

:)

Finding the carefully chosen words

2011-10-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've surpassed week 5 of a commitment I made. Carole cynics might claim this is the longest commitment I've made to anything (that makes me laugh at my own slam!); indeed, I am committing to YOGA through December. Perhaps I will continue beyond that - for now, my 12-week exile from normalcy is under way.

I am on a 3x/week mission to loosen up and "lighten", becoming more limber - metaphorically more than experiential. I have a hard time settling in and turning off my brain. This has been a lifetime challenge, for sure.

I've fallen in love with my yoga instructor, Carmen, at Flatirons. She's fantastic with people new to Yoga, like me. A recent Yoga practice was intense. We got to "bridge" pose, which is the precursor to "wheel" (basically a backbend). Carmen got us ready for the pose, instructing us on our breathing and alignment. Then she paused.

When this happens I inadvertently hold my breath (despite this being a yoga no-no) because a pause often comes before a piece of wisdom that I desperately need (and often don't even know how badly I need it).
"Bridge." she said. "A perfect opportunity to consider the gaps in our own lives. Where do you want to cross over? What do you need to transcend? What could flow beneath you if only you could elevate?" She encouraged us to breathe deeply and consider the implications of the pose.

I hoisted my tired, tight hips in the air and wriggled my shoulders underneath me and took some deep breaths. I thought about the bridges I could create in my life as I struggled and shook.

I want to cross over to new levels of endurance, patience and strength in my living. I want to continue to build solid and sustainable bridges with my friends, even when time apart can cause us to drift apart. I want to bridge across into new territory with my writing. I want to bridge across caverns in my faith life, spanning things like disbelief and lack of trust. I want to stretch towards people I'd like to know better and deepen the connections with the people I dearly love – and I want to be bolder in bridging towards strangers in need. I want to use words and actions to bridge across gaps of misunderstanding and neglect, the passage of too much time and too much water beneath. I want to have the flexibility to lift myself above the current of life when it's moving dangerously fast, threatening to carry me away. I want to have the strength in my core to be able to hold myself steady in this position, whenever the need arises. I want to be able to stretch across to what comes next without losing my traction on the past and my steadiness in the present.

What bridges need some work in your life? Do you have relational gaps that need mending? Do you have people you love who seem to be floating farther away? Is there a raging current you need to rise above? Do you need the strength to be able to hold your ground? Are you being called to stretch past your comfort zone and into new territory? Is there water beneath your bridge that needs to flow more freely? Can you lift yourself out of the way?

Bridges are beautiful metaphors. Like carefully chosen words, they connect us to one another and help us cross over when surmounting the distance would otherwise be impossible.

2011-08-14T14:23:00.001-07:00

TAKE HARD TIMES AS A WAY TO IMPROVE YOU. REMEMBER: IT TAKES A TON OF PRESSURE TO MAKE A DIAMOND

Readers Beware!!! NON-CENSORED MATERIAL!

2011-08-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

Gentle, loyal reader:

I have sat here, no exaggeration, for 19 minutes debating back and forth if I really wanted to post this video? Did I want to corrupt my faithful fans? Did I want them to see exactly what makes me fall onto the floor in uncontrollable laughter?   Did I really want to expose them to this side of me??

Hell yes! :)

This is most definitely not a video for the children, so as Oprah would caution: "viewer discretion is advised!" Clear the room, turn up the volume and press play.... You'll have one of two reactions:

1) You'll be utterly offended, you'll gasp in horror and will be disgusted. You'll turn off the video and likely never visit my blog again.

or

2) You'll squint at the beginning, trying to understand exactly what the jokes are.... then you'll think you know but you'll be like, "Nooooo, c'mon! They aren't really talking about THAT??" Then you'll realize they ARE talking about that, and you'll start to chuckle a bit more (a couple of the jokes will make you laugh out loud!) and you won't be able to shut it off.    You find it hilarious.   If you fall under this descriptor, we are most definitely meant to be friends.   I laughed my ass off at this!   I'm embarrassed to admit it but it's true.

Report in -- hate the video or totally laughed at it???
What's your vote???

Taking a bite out of it all

2011-07-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

(This post is dedicated to my friend, Lee Amlicke, who suggested I may not be posting as regularly to my blog as I once was. ?? This one is for you, Lee. Enjoy.)

Knowing I am a huge shark fan (ha), a few days ago my friend Brian sent me this photo in the middle of NYC.

The lifeguard, ironically named because this guy needs to get a life before he starts guarding them (hey-oh!), was blowing his whistle and yelling at passers by, whose polite reactions ranged from “Shut up!” to “Asshole.” Nothing like NYC. I’m guessing that probably wasn’t the feedback the ad men were hoping for when they came up with the gimmick to promote Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week.

(Note to Madison Avenue: Lifeguard towers stationed on busy sidewalks? Why not monogrammed kicks in the groin, or dead bear cubs perched atop air conditioning units with the slogan: “Heat unbearable?”)

Besides the unsavory ad campaign, I can’t for the life of me understand why they’re still doing Shark Week. I imagine back in 1998 when it started it was a revelation for people who had always wondered about the secret lives of the sea’s majestic rulers. But now with YouTube, you can learn about sharks any time you want.

http://youtu.be/1nzd0R_OeOc

Talk about Hunger pains!!!

Besides, how much is there to know about sharks? You’re telling me there’s more than 10 years worth of content? And even if there is that much fishy information available, what are you going to do with it? The way I see it, the entire reason people watch the Discovery Channel is to impress people in everyday situations, like if you happen to be lost in a forest and you think you may have a fever, you can capture a bird and take it’s temperature, explaining to your fellow campers as they look on in astonishment that a bird's normal body temperature is usually 7-8 degrees hotter than a human’s, so if you know the bird’s temperature you can subtract 7 degrees to determine if you have a fever. That’s helpful knowledge. But here the Discovery Channel is devoting an entire week to a creature that the vast majority of people will never come into contact with. And if you did have contact with it, are you really going to spout some random facts you learned?

Jason: (while being dragged out to sea by a shark) “Did you know that the shark currently attached to my leg can grow to be over 40 feet lon- blub, blub, blub?”

Of course if you’re Ryan Seacrest, throw all that out the window because apparently he was attacked by a shark a few years ago.

"I thought it was a stick," he said. "I wasn't sure what had happened."

Then, he said, "I saw it swim! He took a bite, and he left."

Seacrest said the shark's tooth "wasn't a great thing to find. It was like finding a splinter!"

Although he said he was "in pain," the American Idol host wasn't hurt too badly, but said he "needed to take an Advil."

Took a bite and left? More like shark weak.

The dance....

2011-07-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love a good dance after Rev3Tri has put on yet another good show?

Portland was (is) a beautiful venue......now it's time to clean up.... but first - WE DANCE! :)

Blowing Through Town.....

2011-06-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I love having people visit me in Boulder. It's so great to get to share this spectacular place with people who can appreciate it.

A few weeks ago I was treated to a visit from my longtime friend, Brett Troia. Brett lives in Florida with his family; needless to say, running on the mountaneous, hilly trails were a MUST for Brett.

Despite coming from sea level, Troia kicked my butt. I was grateful he had to stop every 2 minutes to look at a view, snap a photo, jump on a huge rock, whatever. I would pant breathlessly - but always smile and look over at him, no hint of fatigue, as though it was an easy Sunday stroll. Can't let my boy think he's got the better of me! ha...

We ran for a bit, chatting it up and laughing - while I fantasized about our impending breakfast at Lucilles. Unlike people who are true athletes, I need food to motivate me.

Do you eat to run or do you run to eat?

Oh, I run to eat!!!!!!!!! :)

Cooking up somethin' special....

2011-06-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Jenn was cooking us some pasta last week when a box of organs arrived: a plastic bag of hearts, brains, and even some balls. Her pasta sauce was simmering, and the house smelled of basil and sautéed garlic, beyond reproach, the way Eden must have smelled before God got pissed and Adam got hungry. The organs changed that. They had been shipped from a New York butcher who was either laying down some kind of gauntlet — eat this, omnivore — or figured anybody with a hunger for organs deserved no better treatment than the organs themselves. The box was cardboard, the kind you usually get mail-order apples in, but what I saw when we flipped open the flaps was nothing less than a biohazard: a big plastic bag full of lamb hearts, another full of lamb kidneys, and another full of lamb balls, as well as a half dozen little white cardboard boxes, two lamb brains to a box.

There was no ice, and the bags were not sealed, not even knotted, and as the frozen organs thawed, they'd begun to bleed, the kidneys in particular, since one of the peculiarities of eating organs is that while hearts aren't all that bloody, kidneys are inexhaustibly so, each one a little kidney-shaped artesian well of gore. They'd also begun to smell, for reasons that need no elaboration. Instantly, the house stopped smelling like a Sicilian dwelling and started smelling like a geriatric wing.

But the smell, sudden and encompassing as it was, wasn't even what freaked me out. Nor the kidneys themselves, nor the hearts, nor even the brains, because they at least behaved themselves, staying in the bloody bags and the tiny damp boxes.

The balls did not.

The balls were slippery, literally more than metaphorically. Two balls had already escaped from the ball bag when we opened the box, and they kept on escaping, like the runaway meatball song, until the box was teeming with the soft, silky, glistening things, each one of them about the size and shape of an ostrich egg and threaded with squiggly blue veins.

The veins are what freaked me out.

They are what introduced me to the uncomfortable intimacies of organ meats, otherwise known as offal. I have often heard people say that they draw the line at eating innards, with the explanation that it's akin to cannibalism. I have always shared their squeamishness albeit laden in hypocrisy. I mean, once you start killing animals built along the same bilateral lines as you are and are feasting on their flesh, it seems a little late for lines to be drawn. Really - why now? Why not just eat the core along with the rest of the apple?

But I recognized the blue veins winding their way through the forcibly disembodied sheep junk. I had never seen a liver or kidneys or a heart or a brain or a thymus gland, which would be sautéed as sweetbreads. I had, however, seen a man’s balls. (Shout out to my Dad: I’ve only seen them in a picture. And then I slammed the magazine shut. Umm, promise!! ??) Balls aren't innards; they're outards — and they looked just like these, allowing, of course, for discrepancies of scale. Indeed, the balls I recall bore about the same relation to these, size-wise, as the pitiable little lamb brains presumably bore to one’s own superior bean, which reminded me that all human hunger boils down to the same remorselessly evolved sense of license: if someone’s balls are bigger than his brains, we reserve the right to put both on our plates, along with everything else.

The Little Store Around The Corner......

2011-05-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about Boulder is the urban accessibility it boasts. As the warmer weather approaches, I am rarely in my car. I do, see, get to and get from almost everything by cruiser bike.

Not far from my current dwelling is a little store I liken to a bodega. I'll rank any one-stop shop where you can get a six pack, Ring Dings, plus deodorant as the most needed store in town any day. There's only one like it around my neighborhood. With that in mind, while I enjoy Snapply (tastes just like Snapple), I find the business's practices somewhat suspect. No matter what combo of quick fixes I buy, they're always like, "That will be, um, $1.50." Cheetos and a Diet Coke: $1.50. Tostitos, Twix, and a Snapple: $1.50. And no matter what time of day I show up drunk, they always seem surprised to have a customer. Whatever they're fronting, they're not sharing. I tried figuring out the secret password. I was like, "The duck flies at midnight," but the cashier just winked and slid me a pack of condoms.

La Mia Famiglia

2011-05-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

What do you get if you blend:
* lots of feistiness and passion
* a batch of meatballs
* loud incoherent arguments
* some red wine
* gobs of affection
* and a few cannoli's?

You get this ------> the Qualteri cousins!

Here is my cousin Christel, my cousin Andrew, me and my cousin Michelle.
(A blond haired, blue eyed Sicilian?? Blasphemy! Shout out and thanks to my Dad for throwing in the mutt DNA to make me a half-breed! haaa...)

Here is me getting attacked by the kids - Christel's daughter Kayleigh, and Michelle's daughter (my Goddaughter and clone) Isabelle, dangling off my neck like a monkey.

Quite the Family Reunion with my Mom's brother, my Uncle Jim, as the proud (and LOUD) "family patriarch" and his daughter, my cousin and stud ER doctor, Christel.

What night is complete if you haven't been the horse to two 3-year olds?

I'm exhausted just remembering all of this!!! :) :)

Loving the Qualteri Crew!!!!

The Jury Is In: Women Are Crazy

2011-05-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Women are SO SOOOOOOOOOO Crazy - but that's usually because men make us that way!

Crazy is just a stone throw from needing the straight jacket...

I'm not going to say I have never had an episode of 'crazy' in my life that I've looked back on with a bit of embarrassment. Chalk it up to experience and learning, and move on. Thankfully, for the most part, I am able to keep an even keeled head on my shoulders. I have a passionate personality, full of emotion for sure, but 'Crazy' rarely shows herself. I try to keep it that way. However, my few prior experiences definitely lend themselves to helping my friends step off the Crazy ledge! We women have all been there.

In case you're not keeping track, today = Thursday. Which means if you're single and female, you have a weekend ahead of yourself where you have to figure out ahead of time what fabulous activities you're going to engage in because if you don't, you know that you will likely end up hanging out with your married friends drinking boxed wine from a straw.

Unfortunately, if figuring it out ahead of time involves some sort of a date, it usually requires at least two people, one of whom (unless you're gay) is male.

And that's how the crazy starts.

My friend Heather calls me this morning, sounding a little erratic. "ohmygod i'm worried," confides Heather.

"What? Why? Did He say something bad?", I ask.

"No, I emailed Him at..." Heather looks at her sent email files and over the phone reads to me, "11:41 a.m."

"Heather! it's not even 12:30 yet!" I gasp, feigning shock and dismay at such crazy behavior.

(Because what woman on the planet would EVER start worrying about why He hasn't called as soon as she hits send? No, to do that would be crazy...)

"I know... but...I was waiting...but then, well.." ... she was hemming and hawing .... "I called and left him a message, too."

GAH! we are so crazy.

"NO NO NO NO NO," I say, all helpful-like. "Honey, you can't DO that."

"I know, but Carole, he makes me crazy!"

Heather had her first date with Him last weekend. Crazy starts right away.

She tells me she is going to lunch and will call me later "if backup is needed."

"Just settle down! Don't go nutty on the poor guy. He'll call you! Give him a break - he is probably busy", I say, letting the cool wind of reason and calm enter into her force field.

3 hours later my phone rings. It's Crazy (aka Heather).

"Carole, can I be crazy for a sec?" asks Heather.

"Go ahead," I say.

"Ok. He said he was going to call me this afternoon. But I missed a call from the 410 area code, and there's no message. What if it's Him? Do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably."

"Why didn't He leave a message!?", she asks in agony.

"What's the big deal? He'll call back. Relax."

"Can you do me a favor?" she asks.

and here comes the crazy.....

"What?"

"Can you call the number and see who it is?"

"Um, is that a good idea? Don't you think that's weird? If I call the number, what am I supposed to ask?"

"Just say you got the wrong number."

"but..." I love that I am not the crazy one today. I speak in a tone of exaggerated patience - "If he just says 'hi' and then I say, 'oh sorry, wrong number', that doesn't help us at all."

"Carole just call it."

Someone sane needed to put her foot down. (CAROLE is the sane one? How refreshing!)

"Heather. NO. I'm not calling him and you need to chill out. Look at you. Would YOU want to go out with YOU?? You're a grown woman for God's sake, stop acting 16!"

Heather sighs into the phone. I feel Crazy starting to exorcise from her body. While talking her off the ledge and away from Crazy, I google the digits and find out that the number belongs to the guy she thinks.

"According to google, it was Him", I say, calmly.

"WHY didn't he leave a message!?"

"Heather, I don't know. I don't know why guys don't leave messages. I don't know why guys take two or three or six days to call...."

I hear Heather sigh into the phone again. I'm not sure I am helping her, but at least she knows I understand her frustration. Men as a species are, indeed, FRUSTRATING.

I also know that the women I know -- whether experienced or inexperienced or playing by The Rules or completely ignoring them -- are all, in one way or another, waiting for that call. And being crazy in the meantime. Or at one time in their life, they were.

Ah, Thursdays.

Feel Good Story.......

2011-05-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

I truly do have the greatest friends on the planet. I am humbled by the depth of character by those blessings in my life who call me their friend, who only enrich my world and inspire me to be better.
Take a look at this 1 minute story broadcast on CNN last week about my dear friend, Mike Gaw, and his awesome and courageous Mom, Cindy.
It's difficult to get better than this...

It make take a few moments to download. It's worth it:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120287/MIkeGawMovie2.wmv

Victory Remains In The Try

2011-05-10T18:46:00.001-07:00

My friend Kim was completely on course, no pun intended, to run the Chicago Marathon in October. Homegirl's goal - like many runners - was to qualify for The Holy Grail - BOSTON. She may have done it too. She ran a 1:45 half marathon last month, well within range to keep improving to make her goal of 3:40 seven months later in Chicago. Running the Boston Marathon has been a dream of hers ever since her 5k running partner, Julie, died from cancer (at age 35!) in 2008. Together they'd dreamed of qualifying for Boston, and Kim has held true to her promise that she'd be running it for both of them one day.

Never a runner before, I've seen Kim clutch onto this dream with dogged fixation, and I've envied it. She has told me she's felt Julie with her on runs, she still talks to her along the lonely miles, and feels like her running partner is right along with her. I love the determination Kim has maintained to keep running for both of them, and how she keeps Julie's spirit alive. I'd like to think a promise I made to my friend on her deathbed would merit the same resolve and commitment from me. I would honor my promise. I've thought a lot about this lately - what friendship is, what it means to be a friend, the kind of friend I would like to be (and try to be), how I can be a better friend, etc...............

A couple weeks ago Kim tore her achilles tendon and just had surgery. With the time in the boot (roughly 6 weeks) and then the time needed for rehab, she has come to the realization that, this year, Boston qualification is not to be. Understandably, Kim is broken hearted. And I am broken hearted for her.

I could say what I would do in her shoes (or boot), but in this specific case, how do I really know? I have had other dreams deferred in my life and I cannot say I always handle disappointment with grace and gratitude. I eventually come around, but it's usually messy until I get there. I guess we can just try to look for the lesson and maybe that is one small step in the direction of maturity.
It's so hard when we say yes to something and God continues to say no. We might wonder if it's a matter of timing, effort, perseverance, or who knows what.

For people of passion, it is the hardest thing to love yet have to hold lightly.

I was reading through a journal of mine I had written when I was rehabbing after my broken back (and broken spirit) in 2007. Something struck me in my writings ... I had written a quote: "We are defeated only when we have given up..."

How awesome is the idea that we are never defeated if we never stop trying. We may stop and start again. We may change our goal midway and soldier on. We may retire and later re-enter the ring. We may fail miserably and muster up the courage for a do-over. We may let one dream go in order to make room for another, better dream. Or we may realize that the dream we've held close all along matters now more than ever–and we approach it with renewed vigor. We may take time to heal and then, one day - we laugh again, trust again, love again, run again, start again.

If defeat is for quitters, then the victory remains simply in the try. How glorious. Truly.

Becoming a Guppy

2011-05-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Allow me to share a recent swim with "The Wonder Twins" (ie., Denton and Nate). I've been upgraded from Manatee to Guppy. Sweet.

I cannot believe this happened again.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...........but I was first to get in the water to warm up. Denton got in soon after me (this ploy was probably to bring in the element of surprise). I was heading towards the wall prepping to flip turn when --- WHAMO (!!) ---- Nate completely cannonballs on me AGAIN (see last swim post!). I popped up, screaming LOUD (in exaggerated hysteria) and cracking up ..... Denton and Nate high-fived and laughed like two pubescent 10-year olds who just nailed someone with a water balloon from the 5th floor balcony.

Idiots. ;)

Coach Nate came up with the workout on this day. After our warmup, he barked out the main set. He and Denton were doing a series of really fast 50's ......... I got assigned a longer set. *sigh*

Nate: Carole, you're doing a 1000, 800, 600, 400, 200.

Carole: (in exaggerated annoyance) Ugggggggggg. Come ON. That's boring!!!!

Nate: You need endurance. This is a better set for you today than what we're doing.

I knew he was right. I hated to admit it but he was.

Carole: (with exaggerated sad face) uggggggg. Ok....

Denton: Keep them steady, Carole. Try to hit consistent 100's.

Carole: Ok.....

Nate: You alright or do you need some help?

Help = does that set need to be broken up a bit to help with the boredom, etc.

Carole: Noooooo, I can do it... (again, with exaggerated annoyance)

They laughed at my sarcasticly enhanced sad face. I was not looking forward to this longer set alone, but I knew Nate was right. It was what I needed.

At the top of the pace clock we all pushed off and began our sets. I would get so jealous watching them goof off in between 50's with all the rest they were getting. Man! That was the part of swimming with them that I loved so much. I was totally missing out on the FUN. But I pressed on - I had a job to do. I got through the 1000, 800 and 600. As I was prepping to start the 400, they were finished with their workout and were chatting in the shallow end. I was most definitely losing steam - a reflection of my lack of endurance. They urged me on as I pushed off for the 400.

When I finished it, I was pretty tired. My face was bright red and I was pooped.

By now my boys were on deck, talking. Nate had a towel wrapped around his waist and Denton already had on a shirt. I was jealous they were done. They both looked down at me from the deck.

Nate: You're doing great, Carole. Keep it up.

Carole: (in VERY fatigued tone) thanks.....

Denton: You ok?

Carole (again, in very fatigued tone) yeah....

Nate: 200 to go, Carole! Make this the strongest effort. Really push this. Break 2:20 here.

I had about 20 seconds before my push off. Mentally I was preparing. I had nothing left to "push this" but I didn't complain or say a word - I just got my head together and prepared for the suffer fest.

But then Denton did something I will never forget. The dude was done with practice, had dried off and was half dressed. He yanked off his shirt and jumped back in. I didn't say a word, I just focused, but that meant so much to me. Denton was going to join me on this last one to pull me through it. Bless him.

Denton: Ok Carole. Last 200.

Nate started clapping and whooping it up on deck to help fire me up. This was the last hard effort of the day and it was game on. These two were seriously commited to helping me. I would have probably laughed at how seriously they were taking this had I not been so exhausted. It took every ounce of energy I had to commit to this last two minute and twenty second effort.

Nate gave us the send off. I was really pooped but was in the moment and was determined to get it done. The way Denton pushed me was masterful and reflects how well he understands me. He stayed right next to me, dead even, in the next lane - but every once in a while he would nudge ahead, just enough to provoke me and force the competitor (who we feared died long ago) to come back. If he had pulled too far ahead I would have gotten discouraged and not pushed it, but being just close enough to get to with an added push sucked me right back in. I would accelerate and pull up even with him (panting breathlessly and about to implode).

Halfway through the 3rd 50 he did something really smart. He dropped back just a tiny, tiny bit. Athlete psychology is really important - not many coaches realize this. Sometimes it's important to give the athlete, who has legitimately been working hard, the psychological boost they need to motivate them to keep going.

A few years back I was working with an athlete on the bike - she had been working really hard for a long time and that particular ride was killing her. I wanted to boost her confidence. We headed into a 5-mile stretch where she'd be doing a "race pace" effort. On my cue I launched her off and told her I'd be on her wheel.... she was breathing hard and giving it everything she had - and as the miles went on I allowed her to pull away from me, just enough so when she glanced back and I wasn't there, she'd feel even stronger. Dropping someone is a huge mental boost to an athlete, especially when you're working so hard and are fried. It doesn't register in the moment that the person is doing it on purpose, you just know you're ahead. That's what matters.

On this day - Denton was pulling the same trick. And it was working. I was nudging ahead of him and working really hard to keep myself there. He would pull back up to even us out, but the ploy to keep me ON IT worked. We touched the 200 even. I was completely fried (Denton wasn't even breathing hard - the stinker!). Definitely, my best effort of the day, and exhaustingly so.

Nate leaned over the pool deck and high-fived me. "Nice job, Carole", he encouraged. I was still panting like a dog....Denton patted my shoulder and smiled as he said to Nate, "That's our girl...".

I'm so lucky to have their help. They're both so good to me and I am not sure I can adequately express how much what they do for me means to me. My slow swim speed is almost a joke for them - but they are right there pulling me through and pushing me to be better.

Plus we three laugh all the time. That's probably the best part - and, let's be honest, the best way to keep anyone motivated. Right?

Understanding Women

2011-04-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

So........often times I wonder the line between sharing too much of my personal life versus simply sharing things funny that have happened. I'm going with option B ---> in the spirit of sharing some humor, I throw myself on my own sword.

A couple nights ago I had a date with a guy (Brian) with whom I've been out a number of times. No 'relationship' going on, but I will concede that he's a really great guy, we always have a fun time together, and he repeatedly demonstrates he knows how to handle me. All pretty significant plusses, for sure.

We were sitting at a bar, having a rousing little chat over a few beers. Mister Brian had been a slight bit of a jerk with a couple incidents - and I was giving him a little talking to. I needed to be sure this guy knew where the lines in the sand were drawn. :) He kept trying to throw me off my game by telling me I was cute when I got all feisty ... but I was not at all swayed by this attempt to disarm me. Please. It takes a little more than just being charming to make me miss a beat. I kept my eye on the ball. :)

Then, all of a sudden, the game winning play.

I was jabbering on .... blah blah blah .... ready to put the proverbial nail in his coffin with our argument, when out of nowhere he grabbed my face and planted a huge smooch on me as I was mid-sentence!! Uhhh...??? Hpmft. I was not expecting that. He completely derailed my train. :) I had a blank stare on my face, admittedly slightly taken aback (and impressed) that some guy was actually able to one-up me, and then laughed as I said, "You can't do that. I'm supposed to be mad at you." He smiled and said, "Are you mad now?" I smiled back, "Not after that!" And we laughed. The guy totally knows how to handle me, that's for sure.

Damn him. He threw my game... :)

Moral of that story ---- MEN, need a little tip how to win a battle with your woman? In the midst of her mania and crazy speech - just grab her and kiss her. She won't be expecting it and she'll probably think it's so gallant that she'll forget why she was mad at you in the first place. This will work for 90% of us ........ and for the women for whom it doesn't work - well, at a minimum you've shut her up for a few moments. That can be worth more than her weight in gold. :)

Trust me. This is a good tip.

Unabashed Enthusiasm!

2011-04-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

I’m not really the person to ask about popular music.

After all, I'm in love with Springsteen (c'mon - he's a Jersey boy, what's not to love?) and have been for many, many years ... and anytime a James Taylor song comes on the radio, I am cranking that thing UP, always singing at loud decibels. Music by JT is always relaxing and happy to me, and Springsteen can make me dance in my living room in spastic, uncontrollable fashion. "Dancing in the Dark"?? Does it every time!, and "Fire" makes me sway my whole body, snapping my fingers and grooving out. What better way to entertain my neighbors than letting them watch the idiot (me) dance around through the third floor windows?

But the modern stuff - I just can't get into it. I try. Really I do. It’s just I get confused by some forms of music. I spend the entire length of the song thinking about the circumstances that had to occur to get this moronic representation of the human race a recording contract and by the time I’m done with my thought process, the song is over times four. Not all of it is bad, obviously. Take the 'popular' music stations, for example. Some of the music is good, inspiring what I like to refer to as my non-death-metal head-banging antics. Some of it even makes me wish that seats didn’t have to cup your posterior so closely, thereby preventing the posterior from shaking it like a salt shaker should so obviously be shaken.

But the names, UGGGGGG, the names. A few years ago I was totally thrown off by a grown man who went by the name of Chingy. Maybe this is a perfectly acceptable moniker to you, I have no idea. But Chingy sounds an awful lot like dinghy (wee little boat) or dingy (see also: ding bat). Probably not what he was going for.

It's difficult for me to not chastise some of the more amusing songs, ones that verbally express their undying love for strippers with big, brown eyes who twirl around the pole. And then there's Fergie with her inexplicable lyrics about going down on her London Bridge. And now I have a new one to add to the list, per yesterday’s drive home from swim practice: the song about a man who’s trying to get to you and that monkey. I’m assuming that, per usual, the never fully described “monkey” is referring to female 'parts'. ?? Of course, he could actually be referring to a real live monkey, because he’s just kookoo enough for coco puffs. I seriously doubt he has such animal-preservation motives, however, because the line right before the monkey bit professes how he’s trying to get to you and that booty. This line I totally understand. He’s enthralled with a young woman’s backside and he’s been overcome with the need to get to it, like, right that very second. Classy.

Ug. Can't I just get a little Taylor favorite: "Something In The Way She Moves", perhaps? .... ahhhh......... Or - how 'bout this. You've gotta check out what's on my desktop. I keep this handy and hit it (at least once a week) every time I need a little six-minute pick me up. Even if you're not a Springsteen fan (are you on crack?), you can't resist getting into this high-octane performance. Having seen Springsteen in concert, I can absolutely attest to him being one of the greatest PERFORMERS out there. He can work a crowd like few artists I have ever seen.

Is it too soon to get EXCITED????!

2011-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Few things get me more fired up than North Carolina Basketball. I always go through a bit of malaise in April when the NCAA Championships are actually over because I know I have 8 months to endure before my light blue blood gets happy again. The colder months always signal the return of college hoops.

However, a few days ago.......a lit match got ignited into my spirit. I felt a slight flicker....

Check out this link:
LOVE IT!!

Bring on 2012 season, baby!

Showing the private side.......

2011-04-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

On this blog 99% of the time I show my "public" side with my writings - the (hopefully) funny, passionate and feisty side. Sometimes, though rarely, I'm moved enough to reveal the private side that few get to see - the more vulnerable, introspective and deeply feeling side. Today is one of those days, and for Julie I will be brave enough to publicly show it.

Today is a little shout out on Easter to one of my dearest friends - Julie Price - on our friend anniversary. :)

Jules and I met the first year I was living in Los Angeles. I was 23 years old. I'd been there only a few months, was still trying to feel my way around a new city and state, I didn't really know anyone, I was job hunting, living out of my car, and was completely alone. It was Easter and, having nothing else to do, after Mass I went to the gym in Manhattan Beach for a workout. While at the gym I struck up a conversation with a sweet girl about my age named Maggie who was wearing a light blue UNC t-shirt. (Clearly this had to be a person of quality wearing such a shirt!) After hearing I had no plans, Maggie invited me to her apartment across the street where she and her roommate, Julie, were having a casual Easter brunch... "Turkey and Pie", Maggie had said.

I confirmed several times that she didn't mind bringing a stranger to her home ("Do you need to call and ask your roommate if it's ok that I come over?") ... I mean, this was Los Angeles after all. Maggie must have sensed I wasn't a serial killer and, bless her heart, insisted I come with her. I was appreciative of the invitation; I was admittedly feeling pretty lonely.

We strolled into the apartment and there was Julie pulling a huge bird out of the oven. (The ongoing joke we have about this day is that we actually had "turkey and pie" - nothing else. No side dishes. No veggies. No potatoes. Just turkey, and pie for dessert. Classic.) Little did I know this gal was going to become my friend for the rest of my life.

Jules and I connected instantly. She was bubbly and extremely friendly, and I don't think said a single sentence without a smile on her face. She was (is) the nicest person, ever. That night Julie and I totally bonded. We stayed up talking until after Midnight -- and frankly never stopped. She was one of the people closest to me the entire 8-years I lived in LA, and we have remained in each other's lives since I left. We don't get to talk as often as we'd like, but when we do, we always resume right where we left off as if no time has lapsed and no distance has separated us. I love that about us.

....and each year, no matter which respective state we're living in (she is now in FL, I am in CO), there will always be a message on one of our voicemails on Easter day - she will call me or I'll beat her to it and call her, reciting our phrase: "Happy friend anniversary! I love you and miss you!" We are both reminded of this fateful day, more than 15 years ago, when we met and became lifelong friends, over turkey and pie, in a small apartment in Manhattan Beach, CA on Easter.

Today I am giving her a very public shout out: Julie - you are one of the best friends anyone could be lucky enough to have. You were my faithful partner in crime - more than saving my sanity, counseling me through different jobs & boyfriend breakups & my varied goals & life's daily ups and downs, while always making me laugh - when we lived in Los Angeles....and you continue to be a shining light of love in my life as our years go on.
Happy friend anniversary, sweet you.
xo.

Nighttime Aerobics

2011-04-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

This morning was one of those mornings I woke up being really grateful I wasn't married - namely because I would have most likely beaten the poor guy up who was sleeping next to me during the night.

I woke up .... and it took a few moments to orient myself. Understandably so. My head was at the foot of the bed, my feet on a pillow, and I had rolled myself into a cocoon in my down comforter. I sat up, startled, looking around -- and tried to recall WHAT dream(s) I had to cause that sort of violent, crazy movement during the night. :)

Sheesh. :)

2 Sharks and a Manatee

2011-04-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Joining in the fray is the newest member to the pod, former U of AZ swimmer friend of Denton's, Nate Rothman. Nate has decided he wants to get back in swimming shape too, he also lives just outside Denver, so he's joined in our swimming fun. (Fun?) It's actually been great hanging out with these two. They tease and harass me like a little sister, they look out for me, and the jokes are rampant between us. Thanks to them I've started to enjoy swimming much more than I have in probably decades. Truly.

Our last swim was pretty comical. I jumped in right away and got to it. Those two were like chatty school girls on deck, standing around, while I was busy warming up. 10 minutes or so went by. As I neared the wall where they were standing, I lifted my head as I continued swimming in and yelled, "HEEEEEEEEEY!!!! You ladies want a latte' or something?! Maybe a scone??" and then buried my head back in the water and kept going. On the following lap as I'm heading in to the wall again where they were -- they both cannonballed right in on me, causing huge waves and splashes, not to mention scaring the crap out of me! I popped up, coughing, and we were all laughing. Those jackasses! ;)

We did a pretty long warmup set - not that there is really much distinction for me between warmup and harder sets. I don't have a lot of variance on speed yet. I have zero top end (which is not to be confused with having zero rear end - I have plenty of that!). Eventually we got to a kick set and were offfset such that I was a 25 behind them; we'd be facing each other on each lap. As we passed in adjacent lanes, Denton yelled, "Sharpie, join our social".

Social = swimmer speak for talking during a kick set. Since our heads are out of the water with kickboards, these are the only opportunities swimmers get to talk during pratice, thus dubbed "social".

I flipped around mid-pool length so I was now going in their direction, kicking like a madwoman, max effort, to stay with them. They were chatting away... blah blah blah.....while I was struggling so hard to keep up. Nate said, "What do you think, Carole?" in reference to their discussion. All I could do was grunt a response, totally winded. They laughed.

Soon we began the main set. I had my pathetic, slow intervals and those two maintained something I would have attempted in 1986 (yes, I am old). Denton and Nate bombed by me in the next lanes, lap after lap, like scud missiles. When we're amid a tough set those two are all business - and I am inspired. It's good motivation for me. I tried mooning them underwater on occasion to break their concentration but NO DICE. That's discipline.

Every once in a while I'd be on a tougher set while they were recovering - Denton always tries to help. He'd pull up to me in the next lane and I could tell he was trying to create a wake so I could ride the wave a bit. I moved towards him and hugged that lane rope as tightly as I could, you'd better believe it. Like a dolphin next to the boat, I felt the pull and I almost yelled out, "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

After practice was over we were standing in the shallow end. Nate said, "Carole, coming with us for lunch?", and said the name of the place. Denton quickly followed up with, "It's all you can eat!" as if trying to convince me to go because of that fact. I laughed at that. Swimmers are notorious eaters, especially the guys, and I laughed at how everything felt so familiar, in a deja' vu sort of way. All-you-can-eat meals? I remember.....

Later, I was thanking Denton again for letting me swim with him and told him how helpful he was being for me.

Denton: You're good company Carole. Nate and I love you.

Carole: I appreciate that. You guys are awesome.

Denton: I hate swimming with triathletes...

My eyes grew wide and I smiled.

Carole: I guess I'm the exception?

Denton: You're not a triathlete. You're a swimmer!

I looked at him and smiled....

Distinction noted. :)

Doing it BIG

2011-04-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me will agree - if I do something, I normally do it BIG.

If I order a pizza, it will be a large one, and I'll eat all of it (and unbutton my pants after to make room for my expanded gut). If I crash, I will break bones (sometimes a lot of them!). If I teach high school, I'll be nominated for "Teacher of the Year" (I was!). If I'm watching a North Carolina Basketball Game, I'll be screaming louder than anyone (although that's not necessarily reflective of me - anyone who went to UNC is screaming louder than anyone). If I fall in love, it's madly and passionately (my poor heart). If I want to relocate, it won't be to a neighboring city, it'll be to a whole new state (several times across the country! oye - I am exhausted). If I'm your friend, I'm fiercely loyal and steadfast (and almost annoying), and I'll have your back in the heat of battle, every time. If I do a triathlon, eventually I will turn professional (where were my friends to talk me out of this?). My point is, rarely is there a middle ground with me - with anything. I'm in or I'm out. It is nonexistent or it is grandiose. Those are your Carole options.

Yesterday I wore the skirt that my friend Kristen once paid me a hundred dollars to never wear again, except when cleaning the house. Because it’s okay to look like a bag lady when you're cleaning. But the thing is, it has big deep pockets. And it’s all big and flowy and a nice greenish beige color, which doesn’t sound like a nice color but really it is. So I may or may not have broken our deal by possibly wearing it to the grocery store yesterday but it’s been over 2 years since that deal was made and I think the deal was made in an effort to make sure her friend stopped wearing the Duck pajama pants too (shout out to JZ, Lara and Billy!).

After a long day yesterday, I met up with my friend Ashley in the jeans department of Nordstrom’s because we had an hour to kill before the NCAA Final Four Championship Game and they were having a sale. I’ve been looking for a killer pair of jeans for over a year now and I’ve come to equate jeans shopping with the Prince Charming fairy tale. I keep thinking that when I see it, I’ll just know. Unfortunately this has not worked out with the whole jean shopping thing. Or the Prince Charming thing. Which is why I’ve decided it’s a fairy tale because OBVIOUSLY the perfect pair of jeans that fit me just right does not exist. It still doesn’t stop me from shopping for it, however....

So as we’re leaving the store, another jeans shopping expedition thrown to the dogs, I was walking up the flight of stairs that lead up to the parking lot. Maybe I was tired from the day or maybe that skirt was longer than I thought it was, but about halfway up I got my foot caught in the front of my skirt and I went flying through the air, arms flailing, screaming a violent "WOOOOAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" and landing on the stairs with a loud THUD (!!) .... apparently trying to also rip the skirt clean off.

Thankfully, my ass got in the way. Luckily I did not moon half of the city of Denver who witnessed this lovely display. (No Jamie, you perv, this would not have been my goal!) Once Ashley confirmed I was ok, she about died laughing.... It was quite a sight, even I have to admit.

If I am going to fall, it's going to be BIG.

As usual I am quite a show. Please tip your waitresses and bartenders.

Meat in the cart

2011-04-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

"In the opening to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary's in the supermarket, hurrying through the aisles. She pauses at the meat case, picks up a steak and checks the price. Then rolls her eyes, shrugs and tosses it in the cart. That's kind of how I feel. Sure I would have liked things to be different. But, 'roll of eyes' what can you do? 'shrug' I threw the meat in my cart and moved on."

— Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors)

The Shark and The Manatee

2011-03-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work."

I love that quote.

Sometimes it takes a swimmer to help a swimmer. I've been doing my best to get things going in the pool, but most of us benefit from having a partner in crime, someone to whom we're accountable. I thrive in an atmosphere of support ..... and sometimes I simply need to call in my reinforcements when its needed.

Reinforcement needed.

I put in a call to my good buddy, former University of Arizona star swimmer, Denton Taylor. Denton is getting up there in age, as far as a swimmer goes (aren't we all). He's qualified for the past 3 Olympic Trials (2000, 2004, 2008) and I've been trying to talk him into giving it one more shot. "Go for 2012, dude. Why not? This will probably be your last one, why not do it while you can?", I said. I see the wheels spinning in his head when I say it. As of today, I think he's given the nod and he's going for it. He won't make the Olympic team, but qualifying for Trials again is quite a feather in the cap. Do it, man.

Denton lives just outside Denver now, and coaches for The Mines (an engineering college in Golden, CO). I let him know my swimming these days is abysmal, I am totally out of shape and need some help getting back into it. Denton is awesome. "Come swim with me", he said, without hesitation, "I'll help coach you in the pool." We decide I need a goal - a swimmer goal .......... we throw out the 10k open water swim in CO this August. Ok. Goal out there.

Carole: "You are doing it with me!"

Denton: <laugh> "Why? That's the only way you'll do it?"

Carole: "Yup."

Denton: "Ok, I'll do it with you. Time to get you swimming, girl."

Carole: "I'm really out of shape."

Denton: "Well then we need to get on this. How much are you swimming now?"

Carole: "Ummmm....maybe 4 or 5k..."

Denton: "That's not too bad, Carole. If you're getting in 4k each time you swim, we can work with that..."

Carole: <silence> "Ummmm, no. I'm getting in maybe 4-5k a week. Ummm, on a good week."

Denton: <voice tone changes to anger> "Good Lord CAROLE!!!"

Carole: "I know..." <I hang my head in shame>

Denton: "We're on this NOW. You're swimming with me tomorrow and you'll be doing 5k."

I take a deep breath. This is exactly what I need, but I know I am about to be in a lot of pain, and for a while. Denton is going to put it to me.

So we meet up at the pool to swim together today. He takes one look at me in my swimsuit before we dive in and says, "You need to drop 10 pounds." (I was thinking 15!) Some women would take offense to a comment like that. I never do. I respond well to honesty, and also to things I know to be true. 10lbs?? He's RIGHT. I do need to lose that. No offense taken and I love the people in my life that actually say that sort of thing to me. (I am not normal.) "Oh Carole, you look great!" ?? If he had said that BS to me, I wouldn't trust him. I don't look great .... not right now.... but swimmer-to-swimmer he gave me the straight up truth and I completely respond to that. He is not being mean, he is being truthful with me so reality slaps me in the face. I love him for that.

In less than 2k, I am feeling like a beached whale. My arms feel like pianos are strapped to them. Denton swims by me in the next lane, lap after lap, like he's got a Porsche engine strapped to his ass. The wake he creates with his momentum is inspiring. I watch his arm pull out of the corner of my eye each time he goes by and am just in awe. The power to his stroke, in contrast to the absence of mine, is amazing. "You're slapping the water, Carole.", he says to me when we're stopped at the wall. "Stop being so mad at the water..." (That made me laugh!)

We do a small set of 100's to check my pace a bit to have a sense of what I'm swimming now. No overly hard efforts, but some steady pushes. I am holding right about 1:15-1:17 pace. Not too good but I honestly was expecting a bit worse. We agree I should be holding a consistent 1:06-1:09. With an air of confidence Denton says, "No problem. I'll have you there in 8 weeks".

We begin the next set and every so often Denton points out inefficiencies with my stroke. As he swims by, with the keen eye of an elite swimmer, he notes the dead spots in my stroke. He points to that area, that part of my stroke, underwater. I watch out of the corner of my eye, neither of us missing a beat in our tempo, and try to make the corrections.

Here is Denton and me chatting today during a kick set:

But then something funny. It starts to become Wild Kingdom in that pool....

As he swims next to me, he starts cuing me underwater when my stroke is flat, or when I am not following through, or when a various weak part is observed -- and he does so in distinctly different underwater high-pitched sounds so I can distinguish differences. I was trying to keep a straight face, trying not to laugh, but I swear it started to sound like I was swimming next to an Orca Whale that was squealing communication to the pod. I couldn't help but laugh.........

I finished my swim with Denton and I was completely fried. Today was just about putting in the yardage...we'll be adding on from here. This is just what I need though. Sometimes it takes a swimmer to help a swimmer and really appreciate his desire to join forces. Swimmers typically share a "shorthand" with each other; the jokes are usually raunchy and we all find the same sort of things funny. Getting to join Denton in the pool and support HIS mission to qualify once again for Olympic Trials makes me feel valuable for him, too. "It's great to have you for MY accountability, Carole", he says. That's awesome. We are helping each other - that always feels right to my spirit.

"I'm really quite exhausted at the moment, but you never know, you are always surprised at what you can find sometimes, and maybe I will find something deep within to find the desire to swim fast". Leisl Jones: Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer

Stay tuned. We'll see what my old, tired body can do.

Cougar Town In Boulder

2011-03-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to put this out there for public consumption. Sometimes these little nuggets are best kept among a small circle of friends. But a few of my friends who I told were all like, "You gotta put this one on your blog!!"

Ummmm... ok...

A few weeks ago my good friend from Atlanta, Patrick, was in town visiting his CU son, Kevin. We trolled (yes) on over to "The Dark Horse" CU bar for dinner (eugh?), which was a dark, hollowed out canyon saloon which reeked of bad beer and stale puke. (Good memories of college days came flooding back!) We all sat in the bar area to eat - the usual scenario where you strike up conversations with those around you.   I ended up in some flirtacious banter with a CU Rugby Freshman .... c'mon, let Sharpie have a little fun ....... Homeboy most certainly did NOT look 19 - he did look young though - but then I don't look 25 either! (Ahem!)   Patrick and Kevin were eavesdropping on our conversation the whole time .... I would occasionally look over and wink at them as they were laughing and shaking their heads at me.

By the end of my burger and 50-cent Monday-Night-Ladies-Night-Beer-Pitcher-Special, my little friend was warm for my form, for sure. I get invited back to his "dorm". (Oh, the memories!) Romantic and compelling offer, for sure, but I'm thinking probably not. (Understood we're talking a 19 year old male in college - dude would have taken home anything with a PULSE - this bears no compliment to me. But at least the offer was when he was sober. Beer goggles were not involved. *score!*)

Homeboy was all about the wooing. Demonstrating his mastery of the art of seduction, he skillfully tosses out the "you're hot" descriptor.    Damn right I'm hot, little boy. And it only requires one roll of duct tape to keep these boobs up too!

Alas, I had to turn him down with the reality check. Cougar / Mrs Robinson aside, he's got to at least be able to legally rent a car. I have standards.

Carole: "Honey, I am old enough to be your mother..."

Here comes the comeback of the century. Ready?
Little Friend: "Good - then it will be familiar to you."

Ummmmmmmmm... HUH??   Clever comeback --- but EUGH????!!!!!!!!   I can't even describe the look of confusion plus utter gross-out that I shot him.

I thought about following up with something about "spotting due to premenopause" (gotta teach the young lad a thing or two!) but thought I'd just leave it alone...

Throughout this evening I'd been texting my good friends, Anthony and Michele Beeson, about the scene. Michele sent me a great text: "Embrace it. You're hot. Rugby hunk wants you!"

Ha!
I've still got it. ;)

Running New Routes

2011-03-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

I had a long run for today and wanted to try a different route. Although I think I am most definitely spontaneous in certain situations, most times I am simply a creature of habit. I usually eat the same thing for breakfast, drink coffee each morning out of my favorite mug, run the same routes, get up at the same time each day, order the same thing off the menu each time I go to that restaurant, etc. It sounds sort of pathetic when I write it down, but for me it is far from pathetic. I like consistency. I like routine. I like things I can count on. I like things I know to be true. As I discovered (long ago on a therapists couch), for me sameness represents security. When potential change evokes the memory of disaster - indeed, sameness represents security. Carole psyche 101.

I fight this need for consistency sometimes and force myself to change things up. It's good for me to challenge myself in ways that yank me from my comfort zone and require me to grow, to adapt.

There are a million renowned running routes in Boulder I've never even been to. I know, I know... This morning was going to be my morning. Trying something a little different - game on, baby!

At 8:30am I texted my friend Brandon (i.e. BDC) to get a run route suggestion from him.
We had the following text conversation transcribed below:

8:32am Carole: "Want to run this morning? I want to try something new."

8:34am BDC: "Mark and I are walking the dogs at Chautauqua, come with us."

8:35am Carole: "Thanks but I need to run."

8:36am BDC: "Well come meet us at Chautauqua and go do Mesa Trail".

8:38am Carole: "I've never done Mesa Trail."

8:39am BDC: "How long have you lived here????"

8:41am Carole: "I know...... I hear that trail is very rocky."

8:41am BDC: "I run it all the time."

8:42am Carole: "Will I get lost??"

8:44am BDC: "Not unless you're a retard!"

:) Ha!

8:46am Carole: "When are you guys starting?"

8:47am BDC: "In 15 minutes - meet you there!"

8:48am Carole: Arrrrrrrrrgh!! I can't be there in 15 min, I am finishing my coffee, I need to get ready!"

8:51am BDC: "Hurry your ass up! We'll be waiting."

With the speed we throw down in T2 in triathlon, I get ready in record time.......I gulp the final bit of coffee, yank up my tights, throw on my running shirt, fill some water bottles, grab my visor and First Endurance Flask and fly out the door with a bagel dangling out of my mouth....and meet BDC and Mark (JZ's husband) at the base of Chautauqua in 17 minutes. Pretty good considering 9 of that was driving. I am fast.

I hiked with them up the hill until their trail went one way and the Mesa Trail went the other, and we said our goodbyes.

I hear BDC yell out, "Watch your footing, Sharps!"

Yea, no kidding. I get maybe 5 minutes into the run and I am cussing Brandon out. This trail is ROCKY...loose rocks too, not just big things to have to angle over. Gggrrr. I am definitely going to fall on my butt out here - but I stay determined and keep the fight. I have to walk up most of the steep climbs to keep my heart rate manageable .... thankfully the views were gorgeous... but I really couldn't take my eyes off the terrain much or I feared I would fall.

Soon I come to a sign that reads: "Area wildlife includes deer, coyote, fox, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bats, rattlesnakes and numerous raptor species. Be cognizant of wildlife activity updates, warnings and resulting trail closures or usage limitations."

Great, I'm going to get mauled out here by a jungle cat.

As I continue on, the trail splits a lot to take hikers/runners various ways - I try to pay attention to ensure I go the correct route. "Stay on Mesa Trail, Sharpie".

The trail winds, and goes up stairs, and across tiny bridges, over rocks, and along ridges.......... I keep going...... staying focused......

....... 40+ minutes in I come to a sign that reads: Skunk Canyon Trail. Uh-oh. Oh man, not only am I lost, I know it's just the name of the trail but if I'm running right into a skunk farm Brandon is getting his butt kicked! I run a bit on Skunk Canyon until it's time to head back...........

I pray I am not going to be lost out here.........
The way back is worse than the first half - man this route is tough!

I make it back to my car in almost complete muscular failure. My legs are shot and shaking with fatigue. I realize how WEAK I am to have not been able to endure this terrain better.......my legs just do not have the power. This is incredibly good feedback for me physically.

I've always said there are no short cuts in athletics - fitness, or lack thereof, always reveals itself. You can't fake fitness. Today it left in its wake a shocking display of mediocrity... :)

But at least the route was beautiful.........I encountered no mountain lions or bears that wanted to eat me, no snakes that wanted to bite me, no bats to suck my blood, and I made it back to my car before the sun went down. That's a good day in my book! :)

The Right Voice

2011-03-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

"Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,

as the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps ...."

- Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass -

A couple days ago I received a really impactful email from my good friend, Kyle. I'd been sharing with him recently some of the struggles I'd been having (mostly mental) trying to re-engage in the sport.

It's amazing to me how we're all motivated by different contrasts. Some people find fierce determination in being discarded, finding fight in "proving people wrong". Lance Armstrong has always been the supreme example of this: if you pissed him off, he'd pretty much make it his life mission to destroy you and make you eat your words. In many ways I admire people like that and wish I had some of that flame. To be able to direct your fire at something predictable, something specific - what a lightening bolt target. To be fueled by rage in sport? Wow - what adrenaline that must be. I wish I had that in me. (Really.) If I could find motivation ignited by revenge, pushed by defying people who didn't believe in me, I'd probably be a much better athlete. Especially this year. But my point is, this is exactly what kills my spirit instead of thinking, "I'll show 'em".

Revenge just isn't what does it for me. It isn't. I have always found the greatest source of motivation within euphoria; I'm profoundly moved and boosted by people I respect/love/admire who believe in me, who support me. The random person who says "You can do it" when they really have no idea what my journey has been, well it's a nice statement, but it's not attached to anything real. It's completely vacuous. But someone who KNOWS me, who I really care about, who has some perspective with what I'm doing (or trying to do) and what obstacles I'm facing, if this person says, "I know you can do this", and this is someone I respect in turn, well, it's a whole new ballgame. That helps me fight; that motivates me.

So I get this great email from Kyle. It's worth noting, Kyle is one of the few people who totally inspires ME. (This doesn't happen to me often.) Ok, he's not battling leukemia, he's not without a limb, nor does he have some sort of disfiguring disease with which he is trying to manage. Certainly, those battles are beyond Herculean to consider. But he did something that, to me, is a whole different level of bravery. The dude quit his lucrative job in medical sales, sold his house and set forth on a year long quest to literally "travel the world", from which he just recently returned. Wow.

Now before anyone starts saying, "C'mon. That's not brave! Who wouldn't love to go on a year long vacation!" ........ before you blurt that out, really consider what you're saying. Clearly, yes, it's not like he thrust himself into a year long prison camp. Even Kyle would agree with that. He did this for fun, to fulfill a dream he had. But before you seem certain this sort of thing doesn't require some guts, and you'd love to do that too -- make no mistake -- YOU COULD DO THAT! The point is --- WOULD YOU? Would you have the courage to do it. To include all the needed sacrifices something like that would require? Would you really do it? Because I am the first to admit I have "talked" for years about traveling the world, but I frankly would never really have the balls to. I'd be too scared. Quit my job for a year (in this economy)? The language barriers? The unknowns? Forget it. We all talk about it - but Kyle did it. Totally alone. Different countries, continents, trying to figure it all out on his own. He encountered some scary, crazy crap too. Uggg. Good for him! I'm pretty tough, but I could never, ever do that.

Our mutual friend, Anthony (AB's Blog ) , and I were talking about Kyle a couple weeks ago. I said, "No way I would be brave enough to do that." Anthony nodded and said, "Ppppffft, me neither! I still can't believe he did it!"

So anyway, Kyle's email contained lots of things for me to think about - but he ended it with: "You coming back from all the setbacks you've encountered is a true inspiration to me." The fact that there would be ANYTHING I could do that would be in any way inspirational to THAT guy is beyond humbling - and frankly, shocking....

...and ... *poof* ... there it was: some new found inspiration. I was really moved by being even a slight inspiration to someone who I perceive as being completely off-the-charts inspirational to all of us --- and all of a sudden I found myself bolting to the pool. (I never "bolt" to the pool. I procrastinate and slowly wander like a dead woman walking, but I don't bolt. Here I was BOLTING!)

Alas, I arrived at Jane Scott's Masters practice 15minute late. EEEK!!!! Being late for practice is never allowed, but I realized en route (at 9:07am) that practice is at 9am, not 9:15 (clearly I am not going enough). I considered returning for 12:30p practice instead but decided to just take my scolding and keep moving forward on task. I get to Flatirons Gym and run full throttle to the pool deck. Jane is just as tough as her brother, Dave, but the difference is that normally you can still sneak your way into her practice late. :) Dave boots you out upon sight.

So I'm running across the pool deck, stuffing my hair in its cap and tossing my flip flops as I breathlessly yell, "Jaaaaannne!!! I'm sorrrrrrrrrry, Jane!!!"

Jane: <sternly> "Don't try to sweet talk me, Carole! You're late!" I love how I can feel 13 again in these situations...

Carole: "I know.... sorry!" ... and I quickly jump in a lane, everyone warming up already, before she can yell at me any more. :)

I stayed in the pool for a little over 3k, which for me is quite a jump. These days I'm lucky if I stay in for 2k, and I'm usually not back to the pool for another 5+ days after it. On this day, I stayed in for a solid 3k, and I started getting my butt in gear. I even worked the last set. ?

So........I have no idea what's next - but I definitely feel like the push I needed to get back in the fight has happened. If nothing else, that's a start.

Thanks, Kyle! You rock!

Getting through it

2011-03-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was emailing one of the athletes I coach. He was having a lot of anxiety about the long run I'd given him for today. People who know me know I thrive off the mental component to most everything. I'm all about the mental connection to our bodies, to people ... If you can engage someone mentally (to include yourself), this is when the journey takes on a whole new level of sophistication and intensity; the commitment just is different.

I thought I'd include an excerpt from my email to him. Who can't stand a little motivation from time to time? My words were about his long run, but really, it's about anything:

It’s like anything. If you mentally prepare, you can usually persevere. It’s all in your head. For me it’s about settling into the rhythm of the run and not buying into those moments when my body starts to hurt or when it says, “you’re tired.” You’ve just got to keep moving. The great thing about long runs is there are highs and lows. That means sometimes you will feel incredible and other times you will feel like dog shit. Both will pass. The point is to stay in the game long enough to let the tough times pass and to move into the higher points. Then you learn that you can move through anything. Nothing will frighten you. Go get 'em!

Love the meat!

2011-02-25T18:43:00.001-08:00

During a recent trip to Atlanta where I had the pleasure of shelling out 2k for a burst pipe (yup, had to dig through the driveway and everything. Lovely!) for a house I am unable to sell, I did have the good fortune of being able to meet up with my good friend, Mark. (Refer to previous post of our last outing:
http://carolesharpless.blogspot.com/2010/05/news-update.html )

Mark is always good for a night of laughs as we always have such a fun, comfortable time together. He also knows what a pig I am, no pun intended, so he took me to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner. Ever since I first learned about the Brazilian steakhouse (or churrascaria, for Brazilian people or annoying know-it-alls), I wanted to go. And it never disappoints.

If you’re unfamiliar with the awesomeness that is a Brazilian steakhouse, congratulations on being a vegetarian. Basically, a Brazilian steakhouse is a temple to all things meat. There’s no menu. There’s no pasta special. There’s a huge salad bar and an army of men who wander the dining room with various hunks of meat on skewers, their sole mission being to feed you so much meat that it’ll take weeks for your digestive tract to get back on schedule.

You “order” using a wooden disk at your table. One side is painted red, the other green. When you want meat, you place the green side up. When you don’t want meat, you place the red side up. “Simple enough,” I think to myself as we sit down at the table.

The waiter comes to our table to explain the procedure and I give him a look that says “Yeah, like I would come to a Brazilian steakhouse without A PLAN.” The way I see it, an all-you-can-eat buffet is a battle between me and the restaurant: They want me to fill up quickly, I want to suck them dry for all the food they’re worth.

I tell Mark I have a plan and he reminds me it’s a restaurant, not an action movie. Whatever. The idea, I tell him, is to wet your appetite using the salad bar. This means eating small portions of delicious food, but also eating medium sized portions of not so delicious food. In this way, you properly wet your appetite for good food while tricking your stomach into thinking that it has to absorb as much of the good stuff (i.e. meat) as possible before the mediocre stuff comes back. This procedure is in line with how my mind normally relates to my body (through deception and trickery), which is also how I conduct most personal relationships in life. It’s complicated, but effective.

My first plate contains mozzarella, asparagus, lettuce, hard cheeses, and pasta salad. I eat in a rotating fashion: two good bites (mozzarella and cheese), one bad (lettuce). (Readers should understand that I don’t hate lettuce, I just fundamentally disagree with, and will never trust anyone who says they like, lettuce.)

Mark is going to town on his heaping plate of appetizers, but I know better. I eat slowly, purposefully. All the while, I am watching the waiters stalk the eager diners with their hunks of meat. (Ed. Note: Great line for a suspenseful chapter ending in my next romance novel.)

Finally, the time comes to flip the disk from red to green. And the second I do, it’s like chumming shark infested waters – except I’m not the prey, I’m the hunter. And the waiters are carrying my prey, so they’re more like a school of smaller fish who are incidentally attracted to the bloody scene. So the shark metaphor might be a reach. But the point is, I haven’t had this many men offering me meat since that time in college when my friend Laura and I got caught in a torrential downpour and accidentally ducked into a Frat house soaking wet. . . .

And once the floodgates opened, it was impossible to stop them. Top round, bacon wrapped filet mignon, pork medallions, quail – the only thing more impressive than the quantity was the variety. When one guy came over and thrust a slice of medium rare beef at me saying “Pichana!” I thought he was threatening me. It turns out that’s a type of delicious steak. Which I ate a lot of.

The initial flurry was intense, but then Mark reaches over and turns my disk to red...

...Instinctively, I shot him a threatening look. But in that moment, he talked me off the ledge: “Remember the plan! Slow and steady!” I took a deep breath and realized he was right. This is what they wanted me to do – ruin my appetite by gorging on the first wave, leaving me defeated. I looked Mark in the eye and realized all over again why I once loved him.

Then he quickly reminded me why I dumped his ass (*smile*) ... with his cheesy attempt at humor he said, "Remember Carole that the way to a man’s heart is through his meat."

I rolled my eyes at him, shaking my head with a smirk: "That's so appealing. Women love to be talked to like that..."

"You miss me. Admit it.", he said with a teasing wink.

"Just tend to your meat, Romeo!" :)

Pigs in a blanket

2011-02-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

What a rare treat to get to hang out with my favorite twosome, Atlanta's Lee and Amy Amlicke.

Anniversaries and Memories

2011-02-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

"Sometimes I feel like there is a hole inside of me,
an emptiness that at times seems to burn.
I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean.
The moon tonight, there's a circle around it... Sign of trouble not far behind.
I have this dream of being whole.
Of not going to sleep each night, wanting.
But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing...
I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for.
I just want someone to love me.
I want to be seen."
-- Practical Magic ---

Today my thoughts have been consumed with my mother, Nancy. Today marks the day she died, 25 years ago. I've been without my mother for much longer than I had her.

My memories come as isolated snapshots now. A kaleidoscope of colorful fragments that somehow add up to a woman I once called "Mom". I can no longer hear her voice, and the few examples I have of her handwriting have begun to look foreign to me. I am losing her a little more each day. How is it then, I've wondered, that she still has such a hold on me.

My mother died on the eve of her 48th birthday. So young. It had been thirteen months since she returned from the doctors office with news of malignancy in her breast, thirteen months of chemotherapy and CAT scans and desperate attempts to hang onto the little rituals that amounted to normalcy in our day. We still took our orange juice and vitamins together in the morning, but then she swallowed the small white oval pills that were supposed to help prevent the cancer's spread. After school I would go with her to her oncology appointments and on the way home in the car she promised me she would live. Because I wanted so badly to believe her I did, even as I watched her lose her hair, and then her mobility, and finally her hope.

When my mother died, I knew no woman my age who had experienced mother loss. Also too I was an only child. I felt utterly and irrevocably alone. In college, where new friends knew only as much about me as I was willing to reveal, I told few people my mother had died. I searched the university library and local bookstores for writings about mother loss. In each book I found about mother-daughter relationships, I quickly flipped ahead to the chapter about a mother's death, but discovered they all assumed the reader would be in her forties or fifties when her mother dies. I was fourteen. As a grown woman, I have no ongoing female presense in my lfe. I have no aunts, no sisters, no stepmother. I have my friends, who I adore, bu they are my peers. It is not their job to be my mentors or my umbilical cord to oxygen. With a maternal void in my life for most of it, it's a wonder I'm not more screwed up than I am. :) When your window to mimicry closes - how do you learn?

I am fooling only myself when I say that my mother exists now only in a photograph or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. She's a foggy image I can't quite bring into focus and a gentle spirit that infuses all my days. She exists in the background of my life, hovering, suspended, shapeless, like familiar air. Her presence influenced who I was and her absence influences who I am. From the fourteen years with her I learned to be fun loving, enthusiastic and devoted. Since her death I've learned to be independent, self sufficient and strong.

In the darkness of night when everything is quiet and still.... in these hours when I am my most alone and my most reflective, I often ask myself: Am I as I am - who I am, what I am - because my mother lived or because my mother died?

The answer, I decide, is both.

Love you and miss you, Mom - forever my hero.

REV3:Costa Rica

2011-02-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

I'm getting that warm, fuzzy feeling............. and NO not because I am going to Costa Rica ......but because Rev3 Costa Rica is a mere 6 days away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go TICOS!

Will I Be Fish Food?

2011-02-07T04:19:00.000-08:00

I have to be careful how I write some of this entry. If I suddenly go missing, know I did not go into the witness protection program (I’m not a witness of anything) ... Please be sure all of my worldly possessions (my MAC makeup and a house I am unable to sell in Atlanta) go to my sole heir, my 4-year old Goddaughter, Isabelle. (I’m being funny – I hope.)

While sitting in the Denver Airport waiting to board, I made my way to the Chop House Restaurant bar area to have a snack. I struck the good luck of randomly sitting next to two gentlemen who would provide great conversation for an hour. I’m not really sure why they were talking about “The Kennedy’s”, or in particular, the foundation for their fortune and Joe Kennedy (father of JFK, Robert, Ted, etc. ) but I was about to appear really intelligent. They were discussing one of the few topics about which I can really hold my own in both opinion and fact.

I bit my tongue as long as possible while eavesdropping, but then had to step in. I extended my hand for introduction and invited myself into their conversation.

My family has always had...let’s call it a “fascination” with the Kennedy Dynasty. Personally, I’ll go as far as saying I’ve bordered on obsessed with collecting and analyzing their family history. Not only do I believe half their clan has deserved to go to prison, my own family has a bit of a connection.

Let me try to provide some perspective...carefully, Carole!

My maternal Grandfather, Paul Qualteri, is (was) one of ten children. A big Italian, Catholic family…and I was raised with deep sensitivity to my Italian heritage. Once, my father called my grandfather a “WOP” (oops) and grandfather completely flipped out. Let’s just say the only reason Paul didn’t cap his ass right there was because he was marrying his daughter. My Dad is not one to be intimidated by anyone – but he never called his father-in-law a WOP again.

Many decades ago, my grandfather’s first cousin was in a ... ummmmmmmm ... “business dealing” with Joe Kennedy that went array. My family is Italian. (You picking up on the undercurrent?) Our cousin was on a boat. Then there was an explosion. And a body was found. (You following this?) I’ll leave it with that.

Every one in our family was pretty familiar with Joe Kennedy and his rather shaddy business deals, and stories have been passed down through the generations.
So last week here I was in the bar with my two new friends. They were questioning the Kennedy fortune and its origin, and if Joe was “so shaddy”, why he never got clipped (killed).

Carole: First of all, it’s generally accepted there was a hit out on Joe but legendary mobster Sam Giancama called it off in order to have mob protection in the White House (once JFK would be elected – a feat also made possible by Joe Kennedy mob connections. Most evidence on this is pretty compelling).

Two friends: Really?

Carole: Yup. But once this protection never came to fruition, more to the point, when there was unprecedented mob prosecution led by Bobby Kennedy, who was the Attorney General, there was Kennedy punishment. JFK was assassinated...

Friends: Hold on. You really believe the MOB did that?

Carole: Well, it’s never been proven, but a lot of people believe this. And yes, I do. There are other theories but the notion that this was a mafia initiated hit is widely plausible. I certainly believe it.

I went on to explain a little of the family history and Joe Kennedy’s rise to financial prosperity. Most of Kennedy’s dealings were done before things were actually illegal. In his late 20’s he became a stockbroker and made a fortune through insider trading and stock manipulation. He was a master of the stock pool, a then-legal stunt in which a few traders conspired to inflate a stock's price, selling out just before the bubble burst. And, though never proven, his Prohibition liquor business (and the trading of illegal booze) is a great example of things illegal but sort of brushed under the rug. This earned him a lot of money and underworld connections. And, while this was never proven either, most people believe considerable bootlegging earned Joe his initial prosperity. Mob boss Frank Costello said in the early 1970’s that he and Kennedy were partners. My family has always been pretty convinced of this. I’m sure my cousin on the boat would have agreed.

Friend: Yeah, didn’t Kennedy sell Opium to the Chinese?

Carole: *laugh* I don’t think he did that.

Friend: No?

Carole: He was a crook but let’s not be ridiculous. The British sold opium to the Chinese. That’s a pretty well known fact. Trust me.

Friends: Well you really know about the Kennedy’s.

It’s been a lifetime following. As a family they’ve done a lot of good with their power and position, but it’s also been abused. Too many times they have been above the law. And ultimately their family money is blood money.

Just a little history lesson for today.

The author and the imp

2011-02-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a writing group which completely filled my nerdish needs for literary individuals who spend their free time pursuing activities like photography and music and yoga and the selection of festively named beer.

There was a great quote one of the writers in the group had brought along; I asked if I could have it.
"The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several truths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell."
- David Brin -

Brilliant...

I wrote strange rhyming phrases about mold and skittering feet and penned passages concerning our chosen topics of sleep and fear. I wrote down a succession of words that began with Lemon Drop and ended with Lichtenstein, though rest assured there were other words in my list that didn’t begin with ‘L,’ such as orangutan. I ate a chocolate chip cookie that was crumbly and delicious and confessed to my obsession with bleaching sheets and how I’d lusted after an ironing machine in Williams-Sonoma that professed to quickly and easily press the largest of sheets and cloths, no creases involved.

At the end of the evening I realized I’d spent two and a half hours in a small room with six people I’d never met before and not once wanted to stab any of them in the eye. Not once. Not even a wee bit.

This is quite the accomplishment for me.

Finding the fun again

2011-01-31T09:18:00.000-08:00

All I do is sound pathetic and like a whiner. There is no way I would have been able to help someone with this --- and if it weren't happening to me, there would be no way I could begin to understand.

Saturday, I went out to ride again. Just keep getting back out there, Carole.
This ride was a nightmare. Within the first 30 min I was heading to Left Hand Cyn (along Hwy 36) and I wasn't prepared for the gusty wind. One gust slid me into the gravel - right off the road - and though I did NOT crash, it scared the crap out of me in my already nervous state. I was out of control and slid. I was scared shitless. I had to dismount the bike to settle down. 5 min later I got back on but turned around to ride more "in town" where not as windy as 36. But I was never able to calm down. I was not able to get comfortable with speeds high enough to get any sort of quality ride going. Every downhill was a death grip.
Once in a while there was a long stretch of flat road where I got things going - so there'd be 2min-5min sections of good riding, but not many.

I mostly just rode and tried to just get comfortable again being out there and riding on rollers. I never went aero - scared me to death. I think the rollers here, people going by me and startling me, just utterly freaked me out.

I am trying to be positive and also patient with myself.......this was my 2nd ride outside in Boulder on a road bike (tri bike) since the latest crash. I have to believe it will get better and I know I need to keep getting out there. I will keep trying, and keep being as positive as I can be. But this really is a nightmare.

I got home from ride on Saturday and was hopelessly discouraged. I still ran off the bike for about 20 min but tears were in my eyes the whole time - so I wouldn't exactly call this day a quality workout. I just don't know how I will ever be comfortable enough to "RACE" again. I am trying and I realize my desire to race is up to me. No one is forcing me to do it.

The last portion of the ride, as I was nearing home, I kept thinking to myself, "This isn't FUN anymore. Why am I putting myself through this? I don't HAVE to do this!" I would then yell back at myself, frustratingly, reminding myself this is among my first rides back and I need to be patient and give Carole a break.

I just don't want to QUIT. That's what it would be. But I also don't want to suffer anymore. I don't want to be in hospitals anymore. I don't want broken bones and a broken spirit and a broken heart. Can't I please have more than this? Just for a while - just for a short, tiny while? Can't I just be happy. Haven't I earned this and don't I deserve it? Haven't I paid more than my share of dues?

I've had a couple things happen recently on a personal level that have left me truly questioning my ability/role/value (?) as an athlete. My spirit has been crushed, and I know that's not helping. Now I don't really know WHAT to do. I have always thought if you are not happy doing something then why do it? But this is somehow bigger than that. This is about conquering, this is about not giving up. At this point it really isn't about being "happy". Or is it? Should it be? I have no idea. I feel utterly lost. I do know there are a list of things I hold very close to my heart, that I am SO PROUD I DID, that I never would have done had my goal in the moment been to "be happy".

I just feel like this obstacle in front of me is bigger than I can handle. So does that mean give up or keep going? Both options are wrong - and also right.
I've never dealt with something like this before where the outcome of things has been PHYSICAL TRAUMA. It changes the perspective.

So............my ride Saturday was just...I don't know what it was. Or what matters.
I'm trying. More than anyone could possibly imagine I am trying.

The Ass Of An Athlete

2011-01-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

You probably thought this post would be about something much more fun given the title. I am sneaky to suck you in like that. But keep reading - you'll get to the ass part.

I have a great quote by Elenor Roosevelt that I keep on my bathroom mirror. It confronts me each day. And I stop in my tracks to read it, each day, as it always hits me like it's the first time I am ever hearing the words. "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself. "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."

A couple days ago I got on the bike (my "skinny tires bike" - not my cruiser bike I had been on with my "baby steps to get back out there") for the first time in Boulder since the August crash. As if the 2007 crash wasn't bad enough, this latest one I fear has sealed the coffin. I've been enduring some trainer rides of late, but not because it's cold, because I'm scared out of my mind to ride again. And that, dear friends, is why I must. Bike riding has become a near phobia now; I can't have that. The only way to conquer something is to stay with it, again and again. I am not there yet....I am most definitely flinching as fear stares me down...but as of now I will keep trying to get back in the battle.

Right now my only objective is to try to enjoy riding again. Well, no, my true objective is to NOT CRASH. But I have no thought whatsoever about pace or power or how horribly out of shape I am. Right now my greatest accomplishment is simply pedaling, steering, avoiding potholes, and trying to find slight relaxation amid any speed faster than 15mph. Baby steps.

Zeiger offers to start my ride with me on this day. She knows I am scared shitless. I appreciated the support just to be there with me for a short time before she needed to go do her own training day and not be slowed by me. I easy pedaled the 4 miles to her house, just trying to fricking RELAX. I am completely squirrely. "Man, these tires feel THIN", I say to myself. I am jumpy and nervous. The slightest noise startles me and my heart rate skyrockets. Good grief. I keep probing myself to relax, and keep the self encouragement streaming nonstop: "You're doing great, Carole. Just settle in. Relax." People have no idea how lucky they are just to get on their bikes and take off, with no hint of fear. I used to be that person. I am envious of her now.

I scoop up JZ and we chat side-by-side for a few minutes as we pedal our way towards Hwy-36. I am jabbering like a runaway train, total motormouth. JZ saw right through that with the keen eye of a friend who knows me, and she cut me off.

JZ: "The first thing you need to do is relax. Your shoulders are so tense."

Carole: "EVERYTHING is tense."

JZ: "Well relax your shoulders for now."

I took a deep breath. Inhale relaxation. Exhale fear.

JZ: "You look good, Carole. You'll be fine".

We rode side by side for a couple miles, chatting, until our typical pattern happens: I can't hold her easy pace without blowing so I drop back and sit on her wheel. I took the moment in and smiled at the nostalgia...me staring at JZ's ass...I've spent a lot of hours doing that in years gone by. Thank God she has a great ass (she does, actually. Hate her!).

Carole: "Well this is a familiar sight.", I scream up to her.

JZ: "What is?"

Carole: "Your ass!"

She looks back and laughs.

I lasted a few minutes on her wheel before the pace was too hard for me and I watched her start to put more and more distance between us. It was like a ship sailing off into the distance. I didn't care at all - I was happy (or tried to be) just to be out on the road again. Baby steps.

While on her wheel my mind went back to a great JZ story. It's pretty funny so thought I'd throw it for you to read.
Back in.........oh, Summer of 2006 (?), I was visiting Boulder and doing a ride with Joanna. She was pulling me all around neighboring towns and it was a great ride. We were a couple hours into the ride and came to a turn. We made the left and a guy SHOT OUT LIKE A CANNON from the back of us. He'd been sitting on our wheel for who knows how long, sucking the draft, and then like a total asshole, just steamrolled by us in the moment he was freshest and could assert dominance. I am a pretty docile rider, minus getting beer bottles thrown at me from a car not much riles me up, but even I thought that was assholish.

"What the F***!", JZ screamed out.

I saw her body language change. I knew what was about to happen.

JZ: "HANG ON!!", she yelled back to me.

Oh God. Please no. I'm too tired for this.

Within milliseconds JZ launched the vicious attack after the dude. Mach 5. I pushed with everything in me, heart beating out of my chest, in utter agony to stay with her as we began reeling him in. I cannot begin to describe the pain.

Carole: "This isn't Sydney!!!!", I screamed up to her at one point, referencing her Olympic debut in 2000.
She ignored me and maintained relentless attack.
Finally we were on him, JZ just looked at him as we rolled by..... my intention was to give him the finger but I was in too much pain to do anything. (ha!)
He turned a different direction and our locomotive engine finally slowed. I was completely blown.

JZ: "Asshole..."

Carole: "Was that ENTIRELY necessary???!!!" ......I angrily yelled at her from my imploded body, vomit literally sliding down my jersey. (I am laughing now remembering that. Homegirl made me throw up with the chase. Funny.)

JZ: "Yes, that asshole!..."

:) Good times. Moral of the story, don't pull that crap with Joanna. More to the point, if you're going to attempt to prove you're actually the man out on the road (which, by the way, be prepared to be proven wrong on that), please make sure I am not riding with her. It took me 3 days to recover from that attack and my own coach was pissed. :)

Ok, back to 3 days ago.
Things got a little better as time went on, but they were never great. Still, I was pleased I was staying out there, staying courageous.

At mid-point I ran into JZ who made a detour to loop back and check on me. (What a good friend she is!)

JZ: "How ya doing?"

Carole: "Scared. But getting a little better. Each time will be better".

I rode for a little over 2 hours and when I pulled back into my condo, felt victorious.

I have such a long road ahead of me. I am quite certain I will never be the cyclist I once was....I cannot imagine I will ever bomb down a hill or push a descent with intention like I once did. I think that woman is probably gone forever. But I'm going to keep trying........I'm going to keep trying to conquer the fear of riding and in just doing that - I hope I can be a good example for people.

Giving up, even when you're scared - ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE SCARED - is never an option.
Overcoming obstacles is where self respect reigns......

((you can do this, carole....))

The freight train to menopause... Part II

2011-01-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

So I went in for a normal checkup with my doctor. That was his expectation. I knew there'd be more.

Carole: "So I really need something for all of this."

Doc: "All of what?"

Carole: "These raging, maniacal hormones. They're running amok, Doc. Look at this! (I point to my acne ridden face.) Last week I got in a fight with an avocado that wasn't ripe enough for my craving. I'm losin' it!"

Doc: He laughs, but then in his ever-prescient tone, "Carole, this is all normal. It's just the process."

"It" is a reference to menopause.
Lovely.

I strolled out of there with my prescriptions in hand and waved goodbye to the nurse who has "befriended" me. That's in quotations because let's be honest, we're not really friends. We just share laughs about how every time I come in and she asks me when my last menstrual cycle cycled on through, I respond with "three weeks ago." After she got that same answer seven weeks in a row she told me she knew exactly what my problem was - I was packed FULL of shit.

No, actually, I'm packed full of wholly unpredictable hormones firing at will, with a little useless trivia thrown in for fun. (The Golden Girls premiered in 1985! The heaviest element is Uranium!)

The best thing to come out of all of this? I now know what it's like to be a fifteen-year-old boy. Uncontrollable hormones that have caustic outcomes. Thanks to this perimenopause onset I experience the following:

1) Misplaced rage and an increased combative nature. Case in point: The aforementioned avocado story. We seriously got into a fight. An avocado and me. I yelled at it. ? Then, with a coolness that can only come with being a victor of war - I ate it, jabbing the sucker with my fork to ensure it knew I'd won. (Sybil?)

2) Men are strangely attractive, even when they're not. I think that actually makes me a homosexual teenage boy if we stick with the analogy from above. Anyhoo, it's not that I don't find men attractive in an excessive hormone-free world, it's just that I didn't appreciate the sheer number of hot y chromosomes strutting around. My usual standards were thrown out the window (too short, too tall, too stupid and listens to tween pop on his ipod) and suddenly everyone, in the words of Marlon Brando, coulda been a contender.

3) "Are you going to eat that?" has become my mantra. I have never been so hungry, never ever, not even when I managed to do things like exercise or let's be honest, extend any sort of physical effort whatsoever.

4) And.....ahhh.... Teenage Acne. Oh yes. The malfunction at Skin and Pore Streets was just a taste of what was to come. And apparently is still coming. It's awesome and very teenagery. So if we follow that out to its logical conclusion, that means the acne actually makes me look YOUNGER. I have found the secret to eternal youth. Spread the word.

So back to the drugstore I went for some sort of zit cream.
No way I am using that cream-turned-disaster from the last episode. You remember: Holy balls my face is on fire. ? yea, that one.
http://carolesharpless.blogspot.com/2010/12/mountain-and-molehill.html

So tonight I went to the drugstore because my head was about to explode, right behind my left eyeball, throbbing away like someone was pinging it with a ball peen hammer, and I’m perusing the skin care section, like you do, because I’m nearly forty fricking years old and I’ve got teenage fricking acne on my cheeks (wtf, can we not grow out of this? Am I being punished for my clear skin as a teenager? For all the times I just thought people weren’t washing their face enough? Dear Universe: I’M SORRY I WAS A TEENAGE IDIOT. PLEASE DO NOT HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE FOR MY UNEDUCATED VIEWS OF THE ACNE-RIDDEN.)

So I’m looking around and I notice this thing on the top shelf, mainly because the price has three numbers in it and I think, 'Holy Cupcake, what kind of skin care regimen has three numbers before the decimal sign comes in to play'? And it’s this device thingamuwatchit and it zaps the zits with it’s hot hot heat and I WANT IT.

I looked at the reviews on Amazon and everyone’s all, “love it!” and “can’t get enough!” and “would make out with it if I could!” And I’m thinking, you know, I just might buy this. This is self-esteem in a mechanical device! Plus, it’s a gadget, and I can get away with buying stupid crap because THAT’S WHAT I DO. If not for my uncontrollable quirks (hello, I’m looking at you, Miss Jane Fonda workout strippercize VHS video set) I would be just a regular human with the rather obvious and odious problem of not cleaning out my vehicle enough.

It's been quite a day...

Best Quality

2011-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

You know I am all about the thought-provoking posts.

A couple days ago my good buddy Brian asked me what my best quality was. I shot back an answer that seemed reasonable. He shook his head and said, “No. I want you to think about this. I want you to take a few hours, if not the whole day. Really think about it. Then tell me. I think you’ll be surprised how refined your answer becomes, and the self awareness you’ll call upon to get there.”

I’m always up for a good mental challenge. Especially something about myself – my favorite subject. (sarcasm)

As usual, Brian was insightful. As I considered my answer more thoughtfully, it indeed became more refined, more sophisticated. Probably more accurate too.
I challenge you to do the same thing. Think about what your best quality is. REALLY think about it over a series of accumulative hours. A full day even better. Then come back here and post it if you’d like (I always love to hear about people’s strengths) – but more importantly, post it someplace for yourself to see.
After I wrote down my best quality, I felt a strange sense of self pride in my answer. I believe this is accurate, and I like this quality about myself.

My best quality: My intensity. I live (and love) front and center, out loud, and like I mean it. When push comes to shove, I’m a great one to have in your corner.

"Chosen One"

2011-01-14T16:11:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while something comes my way which causes me to completely stop in my tracks and pay attention. I stumbled upon this clip rather randomly and have been almost obsessed with it ever since. I haven't been able to find the words to articulate why this has caused such an emotional reaction in me. Very few things render me mute. This has. That means it is profoundly moving to me.

As I watched it the first time I was unprepared for how it would take my breath away and suck me in. My eyes grew wide as it played on and everything around me faded to black; the video was all I saw and heard. My eyes soon swelled with tears as I watched in almost tunnel vision, my jaw dropped. I have no idea why I connected so profoundly to the song and the hauntingly sad video - but I couldn't look away. I was utterly drawn to the eskimo - searching, exhausted, scared, alone...
I replayed it several times, each time finding deeper meaning and metaphor, unending tears streaming down my face by the time I forced myself to shut it off.

I walked around in a bit of a daze afterward, trying to process the reasons why it had struck me so intimately and so intensely. There are many things about it that hit exactly where I live.

Sometimes I don't always understand - I just know I feel.......

"you might not be the chosen one
still you wait for your time to come
but your faith has taken a tumble
and your pride is shaken and humble

now you must know that nothing's set in stone
you must know that you're not alone...

you try not to ever hate
but can't help but overcompensate
as a smile says everything's rosy
maybe 10 percent then it's mostly, yeah

you must know nothings set in stone
you must know that you're not alone

you dream of another world
where the guy always gets the girl
but your life is not like the movies
you can turn your way to hero, should we

some time for the underdog
we should take time for the underdog

the calm ones will get it done
and it's the brave that will overcome
should you listen to your voices
when they lie and give you no more choices

frame what you're gonna do
in this phase that you're going through..."

12-Hours-Papago!

2011-01-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

So I arrived in Phoenix. By now this city is almost feeling like a second home...the more I come here the more I seem to meet more people. It's been great.

Upon arrival, I quickly met up with one of my closest friends here, Angie Kell-Robertson. Angie was doing the 12-hour mtb race with some of her friends, and invited me to come watch / hang out.

It was so much fun! The race was 7am-7pm, so I arrived around 5p or so to enjoy the final hours in the environment. I ran into a bunch of people I already knew - and thanks to Angie (Phoenix's social dynamo), I met a bunch of her friends too.

We hung out for a few hours. Finally, when the race directors had to pretty much throw us out because they'd almost finished tearing down the site, we ventured outa there. Angie had swung back a few brews by that point and was feeling no pain, so I suggested I drive. She flung her car keys at me with a "good idea!" smile.

Carole: "Honey, have you eaten anything today?"

Angie: "Ummmmm. All I've had are Uncrustables all day!"

I leapt into action.
Carole: "Good Lord, girl. We're feeding you - STAT!"

I pushed the pedal a little heavy :) and got us to a restaurant where she inhaled some garlic pizza...and I gnawed on a slice too. (We weren't smooching that night so who cares?) While we were there she kept showing me texts that kept coming in to her phone -- her friends from the race were all telling her how much they liked me and were inviting me to the group dinners, etc., while I am in town. That was so sweet and really made me smile!

It's such a welcoming community here.
Thanks so much to Angie for making such efforts to introduce me to people here so I get even more dialed in. I am NOT moving, though! :) :)