Dead And Worth It.

I'm running on 4 hours of sleep (maybe ?).  My legs are KILLING me.  The last thing I wanted to do was get in my car this morning. I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm functioning currently has something to do with the unknown number of espresso shots in my coffee. Why ? Because I got home from Charlotte at 4AM last night from one of the most epic live shows I've seen in a while.

Confession: I'm getting too old for this shit.

Confession: I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I want to tell you all about it.  However, 1. My brain can't function above keeping my eyes open and B. Words cannot do justice to seeing AFI, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Linkin Park all in one night.

Confession: That was my 7th time seeing 30 Seconds to Mars live.

Confession: I was never a huge Linkin Park "fan" until last night.

I had listened to their music and hell yeah did I know (and rock out to) some of the more popular songs.  But last night blew my fucking mind.  That is a band that KNOWS how to put on a show.  I have no shame in telling all of you in blog-land that I am revisiting everything they've recorded and giving it a fresh listen because DAMN IT WAS THAT GOOD !

So I leave with you with a bunch of pictures and some video clips from last night. Enjoy !

Because I'm a moron and can't read the tickets right, we missed alot of AFI and I was sad.

30 Seconds to Mars !  As always, I loved their set, but was slightly disappointed they didn't play anything (besides part of "The Kill") from albums before than This is War. 

The weather was supposed to be horrible and possibly monsoon on us.  The weather was PERFECT !

I didn't take many pictures of Linkin Park because I was too busy having my mind blown. Sorry, not sorry.

Also:

(The "after the epic night" mocha "merkshake")

Linking up for Humpday Confessions ! 

Thank you, Robin. Thank you.

Yesterday I was hoping the scales had finally tipped and the internet joking had crossed into "too cruel" territory.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  For those of you who don't know, Robin Williams passed away yesterday.

Brian and I watched Dead Poet's Society last night and I would be lying if I said I didn't get a little choked up.  RW has been on my "Famous people I'd like to have dinner with" list since the day I created one.  Robin Williams is the reason I wanted to get into acting back in the day.  And later in life, after watching DPS for the umpteenth time, it made me realize that I wanted to be a philosophy professor.

I give you a collection of gifs and pictures that make me happy and hopefully bring out all the best memories of this man.  He will be missed. 

I could go on forever.  And I would love to.  But instead I'll leave you with a few clips from Inside the Actors Studio.  If you can find it, watch the whole thing.  You won't regret it.

You will be missed Robin.

"O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

It's Training Time !

If you couldn't tell from my hiatus last week, Life happened (as it tends to do) so blogging fell to a lower priority than normal.  Hopefully you didn't miss me and my crazy too much !

My head is constantly in 15 different places and usually those places aren't where I need to be at the time.  Go figure.  I left/went back into my apartment 3 times this morning because I would grab something and leave something else and have to go back and grab that.  Monday's and I are just not friends.  Add to that the fact that I will do anything and everything to procrastinate getting to work: I drag my feet at the coffee shop, check my phone a million times, find people to talk to - anything ! and I'm just as surprised as you are that I actually GET to work. So I give myself a pep talk in the car on the drive to work and I come in all ready to go and then...people.  I hate my job because the higher ups make my job WAY harder than it needs to be and completely ignore me when I tell them this or give them suggestions to fix it.  Le Sigh.

Oh well.  Such is life and it pays the bills for now.  Just needed to get that off my chest before diving into fun updates about half marathon training !

After an obnoxious phone call last week, I'm more determined than ever about my half marathon.  Not that I wasn't before, but hearing that I can't or won't finish this half marathon or the assumption that I keep joking about "actually doing this", my focus kicked into overdrive and I'm more pumped and determined than ever.  And yes, all of the work I've been doing has been so I could run a half marathon, but it's that time where I look at City of Oaks being 12 weeks away and having a very real goal with an end in sight.  That being said, last week was my first official week of half-marathon training !

Normally all of my runs are around 3 miles because honestly I've never pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try and run more for fear of not being able to do it and also for fear of hurting myself.  Last Monday I challenged myself to run the whole 3 miles-no walking.  I've been doing run-walk intervals to keep an eye on my IT bands and also because the weather was torture and I didn't want to die.  Now that the weather is no longer a suffocating blanket of humidity and my lungs can actually breathe air without being on fire, I decided why not ?!  I totally did a victory dance when I got back to my car. Not only did I run the whole time, but I was pretty consistent ! 

(The cabbage patch happened.  Not even gonna lie.)

I cross trained on Wednesday, went back to interval training on Thursday, and had my PT on Friday. I was thinking about doing my long run on Satursday, but I usually try not to run on the same day I go see Jessica and she works on my legs, because when she worked on them after the Raleigh's Finest 5K, I could barely walk (let alone run) for 4 days.  Which meant that Sunday was my first long run ! My "coach" had me run for 45 minutes and I decided on 4:1 intervals so my brain could process the math easier.  

May I present to you, for the first time since I wiped the slate clean back in June, my first official long run:

Hello Sir Walter

Happy Friday Friends !  I know that usually on Friday we list a whole bunch of things that are favorites but work is KILLING ME and I have way too much to do BUT !!! I would be super sad if I missed a linkup AND I hope you don't mind if I use this to gush/brag for a minute about one of my favorite people ever in the history of everything.

Sir Walter Miler:  Tonight is this pretty awesome event known as the Sir Walter Miler.  Basically there's going to be a huge race tonight to see people run the mile as fast as they can.  The goal is to see if this guy, Sandy, can run a sub 4:00 mile.  

I know...crazy right ?! There's going to be over 200+ people hanging out at this track at a college to cheer on a bunch of people making 16 (is my math right on this ?) left turns.

Why is this included in a Friday Favorite you might ask ? Because in addition to 3 awesome people that I will be going to cheer for, the boy will be running as one of the competitors.  He will be reppin his Fleet Feet Store in the Raleigh's Finest Mile. 

To say that I'm excited for him is an understatement. I've made a shirt and currently have some fun things in the works for tonight (I would tell you what they are but I'm not sure if he reads this or not and don't want to spoil the surprise - I'll tell you all about it on Monday, I promise !).  

So people out there in blogland, cross your fingers and cheer your loudest tonight (the race starts at 9PM) and send good vibes that my guy has an epic race tonight.  He's been training and working hard, has his s and I can't wait to see him kick some serious ass on the track tonight :)  I swear I'm only a little excited...

Hope everyone has a great weekend !  If anyone in Raleigh is looking for something fun to do tonight, come hang out with me and well, everyone else I know, at Meredith College tonight - you can come scream and cheer with us.

(But in a good way !)

My dogs hate you too.

[Warning: Rant ensuing.  If you're a people person or anti-dog. Don't keep reading.  Come back tomorrow or go read last week's confession. This weeks post is 100 % from my perspective and my opinion alone.  Thanks !]

Confession: I hate people.  I used to say things like "I hate people that do X" or "I hate when people..." and then I just stopped listing reasons because well - people.

I generally just try to avoid them.  Headphones, book, phone, resting bitch face, on purpose bitch face...all ways that let people know, "Hey ! I'm not a people person and I'm probably not the best person to talk to." Yet people do it anyway.

I try and be nice to them.  Depending on the situation, it's usually not entirely unpleasant and I can deal (sometimes get a good story out of it) and move on with life.  And then you get the people that try and start small talk with backhanded compliments.  These people need to be thrown in front of a bus.  The thing that makes me hate people more than ANYTHING though, is when it comes to my dogs. 

People are idiots.  I won't go on a long rant about the ignorance towards dogs in general, certain breeds, and rescues in general.  What I will go on about though is when people make assumptions about my dogs (and me) based on the 2 second interaction you have with us.  


  

In November of this year, Ryker and I will be celebrating the 4 year anniversary of the day he picked me. Sadie and I just celebrated 3 years together in May. That means that I have had almost 4 years with my dogs every day.  I know them better than they know themselves.  I know that because Ryker is a Beagle/Heeler mix, his bark is obnoxious and honestly I would love it if it were about 2 octaves lower.  I know the difference between his stress bark, his "you're not paying enough attention to me bark" and his excited bark.  He's a vocal player.  I try to minimize it where I can but guess what ? HE'S A DOG AND DOGS BARK.    Don't tell me to get a muzzle for my dog because I will suggest the same for you.

  


Also, DO NOT ASSUME YOU CAN JUST TOUCH MY DOGS !! Let say that again: DO NOT TOUCH MY DOGS.  My dogs are both rescues that had a hell of a life before they got to me.  This is something I know a lot about (because I adopted them and live with them) and why you should just use the simple phrase "Can I pet your dog ?" 

Do you know those 5 words are the best things ever to a dog parent ? Here's why:

• That pause allows me to asses my dogs' behavior.
• Depending on who you are, I can determine if you can safely touch one or both of my dogs. [Sadie DOES NOT like strangers, especially men. Ryker gets too excited and I will not let him around children]
• If I decide (because they're my dogs) that you can pet one or both, I can hold them properly on the leash as to have the most control over the situation.
• This allows me to say things like "You can pet Ryker, but please pet his shoulder or his butt as he doesn't like having his head touched." or "Sadie doesn't like strangers but she seems to want to say hi, so why don't you stay there and let her come to you."

If you choose not to ask and just assume you can touch my dogs, charge at them and/or approach them in a way that makes them feel freaked out, prepare for an unpleasant experience and DO NOT YELL AT ME FOR NOT BEING A RESPONSIBLE PET OWNER.  You're the moron; not me.

Some other things to note:

• If I make an effort to walk AWAY  from you and your dogs, do not follow us.
• Don't try and talk over me and to my dogs while I'm trying to give them commands.  I'm telling them to sit or leave it for your benefit, not mine.
• When my dog behaves in a way that is not favorable and I apologize - accept the apology ! Don't roll your eyes or make ignorant comments about me or my dogs.

I'm fully aware that there are millions of dogs out there that are great with everyone and everything and are all around perfect.  I get it.  But dogs are like people not everyone likes everyone and everyone reacts to different people/things/situations differently.  Same goes for my fur babies.

I could seriously go on forever.  Short of wearing a sign that say "DO NOT APPROACH" I don't know how to get people to leave us alone on walks/at the dog park.  I just want to give my dogs the exercise they need, let them do their business and play with the dogs/people that we have worked very hard on building a relationship with without the comments and eye rolls and judging.

In conclusion, people: I hate you.  And my dogs hate you too.