Tales from La La Land

One week from today I will be 36. I can’t believe it. I truly don’t feel any different at 36 than I did at 30. Things aren’t as tight in some areas as I’d like, but I think it has more to do with wine consumption than age. Yes, I am the person who will make whole wheat pasta for dinner, do my best to eat a small portion, skip dessert, and then cap the night with two glasses of wine. Any complaints about my non-six pack bring the evil squirrel side eye from Laef – “Well, maybe if you didn’t drink 1,000 calories in wine you might have abs”.

He’s right. So, I’ve stopped complaining about it. At 36, things are pretty established for me: I like wine. I HATE doing sit ups (I don’t even want to think about or know what the P90X thing is). From time to time I considered cutting out wine, but realized I do enough (um, hello, running a marathon) to be healthy. I’m not giving up EVERYTHING.  You gotta enjoy a little vino from time to time. And chocolate. And cheese.

Anyway, I feel great despite now being closer to 40 (stomach punch) than 30.

However, I am starting to notice some things on my face. Lines that definitely were not there when I was 30. I’m trying to think of every possible reason for what is causing these lines. For example, there’s a new frowny wrinkle between my eyebrows. I woke up the other morning to Laef gently massaging the space of skin in between my eyebrows.

Laef: “Do you feel OK? Are you having a bad dream?”

Me: “No. Why?”

Laef: “Oh, nothing. You had a frowny face. I was smoothing it out.”

Well, shit. Of course I got up, stared at myself in the mirror for 5 minutes trying to smile, loosen up the frown line. But then smiling shows the eye wrinkles that are being born. It’s fucking exhausting. Because you can’t control age and the changing of your body and face. And, I’m sorry Demi Moore, but I know drinking water and having great sex is not the reason you look amazing. I, too, drink an insane amount of water and am married to a younger guy.

I was thinking that I was getting the wrinkle because I wear glasses, and therefore can’t wear sunglasses. So I squint a lot. Now I wear sunglasses over my glasses when I’m driving. YES. I am that girl. And, it’s all in the name of combating wrinkles. However, I don’t know what to do about my elbow wrinkles.

I mean, seriously. WHAT are those lines? Thankfully, it’s hard to see your elbows unless you are posing in the mirror with the hand on the hip pose trying to look extra cute. I have stopped trying to perfect the Paris Hilton pose so that I never have to see my elbows.

Botox is out of the question seeing as I’m a regular person, and not a movie star. I know how the conversation would go with Laef if I tried to broach the idea of Botox.

Me: “I want Botox.”

Laef: “Hurry up and start your period so you will stop having PMS. It’s making you insecure. You’ll be fine in a week.”

It is true. PMS doesn’t help in the confidence department. Especially when it gives you acne worse than what you ever experienced as a 15-year old.

So, at the peak of my frustration with my skin, I trekked over to Sephora last night to browse skin creams and beauty products that make all sorts of promises. Specifically, I wanted an overnight cream that would make me look like Jennifer Aniston in the morning, and eye cream that would make me look all bright and cheery.

Let’s discuss overnight cream: $80. Let’s discuss eye treatments: $75.

Had I been a tad more fed up, I might possibly have put both on my credit card and kept a little white lie from Laef. But, I was too disgusted. Yes, I know you can buy creams at Target, but I am hesitant to do that because I tried that, and I had a horrible allergic reaction to which my face is still recovering. I know there must be reasonable priced products out there, so I’d love to hear ideas.

I left the mall and thought about what the fuck I was doing. And what other women must be doing. No doubt people drop hundreds of dollars on beauty supplies all the time. The price to make yourself feel pretty is ridiculous. Hair color, make up, lotions, creams, body washes, perfumes. I have always done what I can to cut back on costs in those departments – color my own hair, buy cheap make up, and I don’t even own perfume right now.

But sometimes I want to pamper myself with fancy lipsticks and salon hair color. And these companies know our weaknesses. I mean,  I almost paid more for face cream than I paid for my wedding cake all because I wasn’t feeling pretty. Or youthful. Well, the giant zit on my cheek does make me feel like a teenager, I guess.

I love that Brandi Carlile tells us that the lines on her face tell a story, yet her face has zero hint of any lines.

As Laef and I near our one-year anniversary, I am learning all sorts of things about marriage. Yes, it’s about the usual things that people tell you – compromise, partnership, love, fighting for covers, debating at Blockbuster for 30 minutes, disagreeing over American Idol finalists, and major debate over what constitutes good television.

It’s also about the little white lies we keep. I’m talking about harmless things, not “I just bought a $300 Coach purse and am not telling my husband” lies. I don’t know what little white lies Laef keeps, but I know his ass gets per diem on every road trip, yet he never seems to mention how much or show me where he keeps his secret stash. I can respect that. Everyone needs a secret stash to do with what they please. (Laef will tell you that he ends up spending his secret stash on me, but really, he will treat me to something in hopes of some kind of sexual something, so technically, he is spending his secret stash on himself. Hold up. Did I just call myself a prostitution whore?)

So, anyway, I might have woken up to a giant pile of Sanch barf yesterday morning. And I might have pretended to not see it. I might have left it for Laef to wake up to.

Sidenote: Before you start calling me mean names, let me quote Lt. Col. Matthew Markinson: “I don’t want a deal and I don’t want immunity. I want you to know that I am proud neither of what I have done nor what I am doing.”

I really hate Sanch barf. And I know leaving it for Laef to wake up to was an uber-shitty wife move. Of course Laef called me on his way to work, asked if I saw it. I fumbled around a little, kind of dodging the question. To make myself feel better I said, “Doesn’t matter because I would have left it for you anyway”. Then he goes on an on about how I will need to start learning to deal with barf. Somehow I feel like a baby that comes out of you doesn’t have nasty barf like a cat who licks its ass. I could be wrong, but I’m banking on it not bothering me quite so much.

Fast forward to last night when I’m talking to Sanch (um, yes, all people with pets talk to them) and I say something like, “Let’s not leave a pile of barf overnight for us to wake up to”.

FUCK.

I IMMEDIATELY got the evil squirrel eye from Laef. (Thanks for the video, Erin!)

I felt like an asshole.

I tried to justify it because the night before, Mr. Perfect Husband made a bag of popcorn. We were settled in to watch the 24 finale (check that, I was settled in to fall asleep to the 24 finale), and Laef cozies up to me on the couch with his popcorn. So, of course I reach for the bag and Laef yells at me: “My popcorn!”

The fuck? Who doesn’t share a giant bag of popcorn? When the butter is wafting in front of my face? It’s almost like the time he instructed me to eat AROUND the giant chunk of brownie in HIS ice cream tub.

So we both do things that are questionable, right?

OK, yes, I know. Leaving a pile of barf > Not sharing popcorn on the Fucked Up Scale.

And, BTW, I fell asleep the other night and Laef took this picture. Why I allow a barfing, asslicking, litterbox using cat to get up in my grill is a question I constantly ask myself.

The blog is suffering. I guess I can attribute it to writers block. There’s also a small part of me that rebelled after finishing the marathon. For months, I had to be diligent about running. The training became another thing in a never-ending to-do list.

Blogging is not necessarily a “to-do”. Obviously, if I don’t want to write, no one makes me. But, I do feel a little guilty when I leave it for weeks on end. Like I’m letting the domain go to waste. I mean, what is the point of owning the domain or having a blog if you never write on it?

This past weekend, Laef and I drove to the Bay Area to visit my family. If nothing else, I wanted to put something up for my sister and Art, who claim to check everyday.

So, here’s a brief history of what’s been going on post-marathon.

The weekend after the race, I went to San Diego for a girls night with Erin, Debbie and Kristen. It was exactly what I needed to get me out of my funk. I hadn’t been able to run the whole week, and I definitely felt “off”. Maybe it’s because my feet looked like they went through the woodchipper Fargo style. Seriously, my feet were a hot mess, and my girl Erin either didn’t want to be seen with me in flip flops, or she’s just a sweet girl (all signs point to all of the above) so she treated me to a pedicure in San Diego before the start of girls night.

It is amazing how far a little pampering can go. I didn’t even know my toes could look that cute. I ventured way out of my comfort zone (I’m usually a black nail polish kind of girl) and got bright pink toes with little white flowers. Again. WHO am I? It was so fun to sit with a friend, read trashy magazines and have my feet rubbed.

Debbie sent us a message the morning of girls night and warned “Make sure you carb load for lunch. You’re going to need a solid base for tonight.”

Erin and I decided that wine and sushi were a perfectly acceptable base.

Girls night was, um, goofy. Pictures have been deleted to protect everyone. You know, in the event they decide to run for public office.  Let’s just say that there were multiple costume changes, wigs, sunglasses, bright red lipstick, and a lot of vodka. We capped the evening by watching Betty White on SNL. I may or may not have passed out on the couch in full makeup and a sparkly blue tank top I stole out of Kristen’s closet. (I wanted my girls night clothes to be as cute as Debbie’s, and felt very un-girly in my UCLA sweatshirt).

This past weekend, Laef and I headed North to visit family. What it boiled down to was the usual – my sister and Neil did a lot of cooking (I made the mimosas so I did contribute something); my sister stole from her younger baby brother; I dominated everyone at Wii table tennis (wakeboarding is a totally different story); Laef, Neil and Mike actually combined to drink 5 beers; I somehow convinced Neil to allow the TV to be on collegiate softball; I gave Sophie candy at 10 a.m. which is apparently a big no-no for kids; and I left my cell phone sitting on a park bench only to realize it once we made it all the way back home. (Surprisingly, it was still sitting there when I went back. Damn. Kind of wanted an excuse for an iPhone).

Hanging out with the family is complete and total chaos BLISS. I actually love the madness and wouldn’t have it any other way. On Sunday before Laef and I headed back home, I took Sophie to a yogurt shop that lets you do everything by yourself. You serve your yogurt and then you get to put whatever toppings on that you see fit. In the end, you are charged by weight. Of course, being  the aunty (and being that I got to leave before her sugar high hit), I let Sophie get whatever toppings she wanted. I can tell you that she opted for: Gummy worms, chocolate sprinkles, Reeses Pieces, Reeses peanut butter cups, chocolate syrup and M&Ms. All on top of rasberry yogurt. Who would of thought chocolate syrup and gummy worms go together?

We are back home now, and because I don’t have running to keep me occupied, I am focusing my time on moving. Sadly, we will be vacating our little beach bungalow in July. It is definitely bittersweet as we have so many great memories from living in Manhattan Beach. However, we have outgrown the place and are tired of commuting to work everyday. So, on the bright side, we will be living closer to UCLA to avoid the madness of the 405 freeway, and we will finally have a guest bedroom!

Because of my excitement re: more space, I may or may not have already starting packing. This type of behavior makes Laef insane. I’m just trying to avoid one of those 13-hour moving days where you do everything in one day – pack, load the car, unpack. Those days SUCK. I’m pretty sure I will see the Longeteig’s on my doorstep in July since I think I’ve helped them move once. Or 9 times.

Running a marathon  is a lot like getting married. I never thought of it that way until I was taking a shower post-race, enjoying the fact that for the first time in a LONG time, I didn’t have to think about the marathon. I wasn’t wondering how I’d squeeze in a lunch time run or what I’d miss out on by having to do a 20-mile training run on Saturday.

It was done.

I did it.

Four months of training for 5 hours.

I don’t remember exactly why I decided to run a marathon. I felt accomplished  by running a few half marathons. I guess it was something to do. Running has become something that I can be proud of. It’s something that – whether I commit to a 3-miler on a Saturday or a 12-miler – has a positive end result. If I set a goal, I can usually accomplish it.

The marathon became my hobby. My life revolved around it. It kept me occupied while Laef was gone for days on end with UCLA basketball. I felt like I was following through, being healthy, and was proud to be in the best shape of my entire life.

I’ve been dreading putting up the “Marathon Blog”. Because, truthfully, it isn’t what I thought it would be. I wrote this blog a thousand times over in my head. On every long run I wrote this blog. I envisioned what it would feel like when I crossed the finish line in Hayward Field. I marveled at my ability to stick with the training for four long months.

Over the past four months, I have never been more proud of myself.

And then it was over.

I ran for 5 hours. I never had to walk for sustained periods of time. I never felt like I couldn’t push on. I had trained for this, and on race day, I was ready. I didn’t run in a spectacular time, but I ran consistently until the end. I pushed through it all to finish what I had started. I ran by many of my old Eugene stomping grounds, reminiscing about different phases of my life (dude, seriously, you will think about anything to kill 5 minutes when you are running for that long).

There were friends along the way to give smiles, high fives and awesome signs. I will always be grateful for the support and acknowledgment. Considering that a tiny percent of the population have actually run 26.2 miles, I don’t expect people to relate to what I’m saying or sympathize. But, if you google “Post Marathon Depression” you will have a better understanding of what I’m feeling.

Despite the fact that I’m feeling a bit blah this week and have lost a sense of purpose, I am in awe of what happened. I am so proud to have been able to prove to myself that I can accomplish anything. I would like to do another one so that my pre-race fears and anxieties will be gone and I can have more fun with it. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t sure if I’d break a knee or collapse in pain, so I was a bit afraid in the days leading up to the race.

But, I did the training and so the actual run on race day wasn’t so bad (except for the 4 miles where I was in downtown Springfield at 8 a.m.). I honestly felt fine through 16 miles. After that it was all about “game management”. I broke the remaining 10 miles down into increments that were manageable. Taking stretch/mental breaks at miles 19, 22, and 24. If you train properly, it’s no joke that the marathon is a mental game by the last 6 miles. Because, let’s be honest, when you think you are on the home stretch – only 6 miles to go – you will quickly realize that what that means is one hour left of running. ONE HOUR after running for 4 hours. You will stab yourself if you think of it in bulk.

So not only am I physically exhausted after the race, I’m mentally burned out. I spent all of my time preparing for this race because I wanted to succeed. I was determined to cross the finish line.

Now that I’ve crossed it, I wonder: Now what?