On Hope and Sushi

Hello again, my dears!

After Friday's intense disappointment, I had a lovely, lovely weekend.  I have little photographic evidence for you because I'm computer-challenged this week, but I thought I'd share a few of the best tidbits, somewhat out of chronological order.

On Sunday, I ran my half-marathon and set a new Personal Record for 13.1 miles: 1:53:35.  I was floored and so happy to see that time in the race results--it was a huge boost to my confidence.  Even better, my friends Sam and Tonya surprised me at the end of the race with muffins and congratulations!  I was so touched that they came out to see me.  Later that day, we went out for a sushi dinner to celebrate and laughed our heads off about all manner of silly things.  The sushi was completely delicious, and the company was even better.

Between running and sushi, I was able to do a bunch of cleaning and organizing around my apartment.  Things had been sliding into the Yucky Zone for a few weeks--it was a slow, gradual slide that was the result of me being too busy/stressed to make much of a dent in the yuck.  But yesterday, I finally had some time to sort through a huge pile of mail and do a lot of cleaning and organizing to restore order in Ye Ole Pigsty.  It felt wonderful.  I don't particularly enjoy cleaning, but it does feel therapeutic to take control of one's space in a very physical way.

On Saturday, I ran errands via bike on an incredibly windy day, and I worried that the wind was going to trash my legs for Sunday's race.  (It didn't, but my legs were pretty tight throughout the whole race.)  I spent a nice evening by myself, making a lentil and rice soup from Cook This Now by Melissa Clark, and I remembered how much I love collard greens.  Seriously: why did it take me 31 years to discover collard greens?  Also, here I wish I had a picture of my grocery bag with my huge bunch of greens sticking out the top.  Collard greens are kind of ridiculous, the way they don't even fit into most plastic produce bags or my wrapsack.  So there I am, riding my bike home from the store with my leafy produce waving in the wind.  I am such a damn foodie.

Finally, on Friday night there were indeed beers and mushroom burgers!  And here, dear reader, is the part where I tell you I've met someone.  I like him.  He likes me.  I would love to just freeze this moment in time, this magical feeling of finding someone in a town that makes women like me despair of ever meeting someone date-able.  What's really great about this person is that I keep unpacking all my objections to dating Texas men (he's a native Texan), and he just listens, ever so patiently, and then responds thoughtfully--no defensiveness, just genuine conversation.  On Friday, when I told him I'd received sad news, he came over to pick me up for our date, gave me a hug, listened to my story, and offered me a hankie.  He didn't offer advice or try to fix my problems like so many men do.  He was just there.  It was a lot for me to ask of someone I met so recently.  But he didn't seem to mind, and then we went out and had a lovely evening together.

I feel shy talking too much about this nice man on the blog here because it's new and we're just getting to know each other.  But right now, I'm feeling really damn lucky that we found each other at all.  Right now, that's good enough for me.