Birthday Maggot

I’m not too hung up on birthdays; since I share one with my brother, it’s always seemed like just another holiday rather than My Special Day. But this year my husband, in cahoots with one of my best friends, decided to throw me an almost-surprise party—“almost” in that he didn’t tell me until a week beforehand that it was going to happen, which didn’t give me enough time to get anxious about it. And it was absolutely lovely. A perfect mix of friends—from work, from the neighborhood, from the family, from blogs, and even from my childhood. Lots of kids for HellBoy to jump on the couch with, and I got to hang out on my patio and sip mojitos. My husband got me a pretty cool present too:


And he’s not even allowed to read my blog—he just listens up when I tell him about it.

Embracing My Inner Maggot

Here’s how tough things have been around here: I started running in the morning.

It was a long time coming. I had to skip my run more and more often, what with late meetings/work/HellBoy meltdowns. And I started to wake up too early more and more often, opening my eyes in a panic: What is it I’m overdue on today?

Finally one morning as I lay in bed waiting for the 6 am alarm to go off, I realized I was a maggot, and I knew what I had to do. I hauled my carcass out of bed, put on my running clothes (discovering in the process that a tight running bra is a lot harder to wriggle into when you’re stiff), did my warmup stretches (ditto), swallowed some coffee, and for the first time since I started running some two decades ago, went out for a run as the sun was rising.

I hated it. I’m a running owl, not a lark. But I thought of all you maggots out there, and I did it. And did it again, and again. And you know? It’s not so bad. It’s certainly very different. I can’t get the same cleansing, relaxing feeling I do at the end of the day, when I can let all of my built-up frustrations melt away. I actually need to run longer to feel like I’ve done anything. But it does lend the rest of the day a certain calmness.

On another subject, we saw the ENT, and got good news: since HB is overall improving, we can hold off on surgery, as he is likely to outgrow this. I was more relieved than I expected to be.

As for the blog rename, I’m mulling over the options. I won’t go password-protected. I’ve been combing through my archives a little bit, and I don’t think I have too much on here that I’d be horrified if someone discovered. I’d much rather not be outed, and I do think I need to change things up a little, but to completely prevent all possibility of recognition would mean changing the blog so much that it wouldn’t be fun anymore.