Exceptionally Unexceptional

This week has kind of been boring.  I want to write something but there is really nothing of any substance to write about so I'll just post a couple of pictures I took to fill the space.

I did get licked by a bird this week though.  Yes...licked by a bird.  I guess it's better than bitten by a squirrel or pinched by a duck.  Both of which have happened.  It was kind of cute.  The licking bird, not the biting squirrell or pinchy duck.  Ooooh, and we also had a baby seal at the shelter.  He was adorable.  They make some very weird sounds.  Clearly, that's the excitement of this week.  Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to write next week.  Sorry for the waste of a post.

Never. Again.

Never again. I hate you, D: the only two thoughts running through my head during 5 kilometers of mud and torture.  For my friend's birthday, I told her that whatever she wanted to do, I would do with her.  I should have known better than to say that to someone who loves to work out.  She decided that for her 29th birthday, we would do a Dirty Dash.  In case you don't know what a dirty dash is, it is a race.  Through mud.  Stinky mud.  And obstacles.  And hills.  With mud.  It was awful.  Full disclosure: I am a wimp and this post will be all about me whining about the race even though I'm secretly kind of proud of myself for finishing it.

1. I got separated from D and her daughter almost immediately after starting the race so I was on my own for pretty much the entire 5k.

2. I had mud in places that mud should NEVER be.  I got home and took a shower that included sudsing up three times.  I still feel like I have mud somewhere on me.

3. If you recall, I hurt my knees a few weeks back and I have barely been able to walk for the past two

weeks let alone train so I was absurdly out of shape!

4. I somehow ended up upside down going down a slide and went down headfirst and landed right on my back.  I have a couple of lovely bruises on my lower back/butt to show for it.  In fact...here are just a few pictures of my bruises (some of them don't look as bad as a they feel).  Only the ones that don't require me to drop my pants.  This isn't that kind of blog.

Top Left: right forearm, Top Right: left underarm, Center: left knee, Bottom Right: left side arm, Bottom Left: left forearm

And to make matters worse, I've had this cough for 7 months and I think running/crawling/climbing through mud didn't help.  In fact, I think I might have inhaled more mud than is safe for human consumption.  My cough is now about 75 times worse.

Because I respect D's privacy ;)  I don't know how I managed to look
clean.  I certainly didn't feel like it.

However...all in all it was a successful day because D absolutely loved the race and plans to do it every year from now on.  I'm glad to have been able to celebrate with her...in her way.  Even though everything hurts, I can now safely say that I've done a mud run and it is just not my thing.

Writer's Block

My cliche, emo picture of raindrops on a window.   But I took it and I'm proud of it.

It's hard to explain the way writer's block feels to me.  It feels like I want to rip apart my own body just to get all the thoughts stuck inside me out.  It feels like I'm trapped.  It feels like my skin is crawling and that I just can't stop fidgeting.  It feels like there is literally something under my skin and like there are tiny shocks going on.  I feel like I want to find a way to pour every word inside of me out.  I feel like nothing I write down is sufficient to express what I'm feeling.  It feels like no matter what I write down, it doesn't do my thoughts justice.  Everything feels like it's just not right.  Every single word seems too mundane and boring.  It feels like I've lost sensation in my fingers, like my thoughts aren't being sent to fingers in time for me to get them in writing.  I will write one word and erase it because it feels wrong, then another, and another, and another until I just want to give up.  I always think starting from scratch will help but it never does.  The worst part is that writer's block is internal but I get so anxious and frustrated that I can feel my body tensing and all my muscles seizing up until I'm actually shaking and need to stop before I start pulling my hair out or scratching at my skin.  Writer's block is also retroactive.  Even if I wrote something weeks before the writer's block, when I read it again, it sounds awful.  I would do anything to get it to stop.  I guess that's when I have to find other outlets.  Ugh...that's the only word that sounds appropriate in this frame of mind.

True Friendship: Chasing the Dragon Edition

This is the conversation I had with one of my best friends recently.  I hope that he doesn't mind me sharing but after reading this, all I could think was "this is how I know we're in this for the long haul."

T: I need drugs. Like hard drugs.

Me: Ummmmm...I could totally go for some heroin?

T: Let's do it. Time to meet the dragon.

Me: Deal! Know any trustworthy heroin dealers?

T: I might know a guy.

Me: In Virginia? Really?

T: Possibly. I probably would never try.

Me: Wimp!

Is there even such a thing as a "trustworthy heroin dealer"?  I don't personally know a whole lot of drug dealers (at least not in the last few years.  Just kidding.  Or am I?) but I'm pretty sure that statement is an oxymoron.  But who knows.  Maybe heroin dealers are actually more trustworthy than doctors or priests and they just have built up this bad reputation.  I think I just started defending heroin dealers and that probably means that I should just stop writing before someone reads this post and actually thinks I'm a heroin addict or something.  I'm not.  Really.

Anyway, this is the friend who has graciously agreed to go to Colorado with me in August because no one else really wanted to go.  I'm not sure about Colorado either.  Do they have a heavy heroin usage rate?  I guess I could google it but where's the fun in that when you can just speculate?  I guess I'll just decide for myself when I get to Colorado.

Just as a little disclaimer, neither T nor I do heroin or any other kind of (non prescription) drugs to the best of my knowledge.  He was just having a rough day.

Love you, bud.  You get me.

Random photo of girls sharing a paddle board to ease the tension this drug related post may have caused.

Scary Baby Birds

This is a Western Scrub Jay I actually got to feed today.
He was a sweetheart. (Pic courtesy of PAWS)

So a while ago I promised to post some more stuff about the scary baby birds I get to feed.  Well here they are.  Terrifying aren't they?

They're actually a lot less scary when there isn't a teacher breathing down your neck.  After about two shifts, I actually feel comfortable feeding most of the birds.  Though it still makes my heart skip a beat and die a little inside every time I see a baby bird get taken away because it isn't going to survive.  I know it's for the best if they're not thriving but you want so badly for all of them to survive and be rehabilitated.  So far I've only seen three birds be taken away and not come back and that was more than enough for me.  It's easier when they are hatchlings and look kind of gross and featherless and not like cute little birds but when they look like adorable tiny birds, it's hard to separate myself from them.  There were a couple that were in questionable condition today that I'm trying hard not to think about before my shift next week.

I decided to volunteer to make a difference and already I'm starting to notice that I have to force myself to shut off emotions.  That's extremely unnatural for me because I generally feel so much, all the time that it's overwhelming.  It's hard to not feel like a heartless bitch when I tell myself to not get emotionally attached to the baby birds.  I tend to let everything in and affect me, I'll chalk it up to one of the affects of my mental illnesses.  But I guess that's one other good thing that might come out of volunteering with wild animals: I'll learn to separate myself emotionally from what is going on around me.  I actually didn't even think of that when I signed up to volunteer but I think it was meant to be because if anything is going to train me to protect myself a bit more, it's going to be learning to let baby birds go when it's their time.  Huh...who woulda thunk that would be a bonus.

But to end on a cheerier (sort of) note.  Here are some things I've learned about birds so far:

1. Robins are the messiest freaking birds ever!  They shit everywhere and constantly.

2. Stellar Jays are jerks and try to escape every single time they can.

3. Crows are adorable but smell awful.

4. Chickadees are my favorite so far.  They totally just chill on your fingers while you're trying to feed them and land anywhere they please when they do escape...like the top of your head.

This is a Stellar Jay.  These guys are seriously jerks...though apparently not
as much as Blue Jays.  Freaking escape artist. (pic courtesy of PAWS)

Meet the Snails: Teeny, Weeny, and Gary (who's shy)

This is Teeny saying hello.  He's the biggest snail...ironically.

Yes, the snails are real and they are named Teeny, Weeny and Patrick.  There are only two famous snails I know of, Teeny Weeny the racing snail from Never Ending Story and Gary from Spongebob.  I hate Spongebob.  Truly hate Spongebob.  Worst cartoon ever.  But I do like Gary.  I think he might be the best pet ever!  My Gary doesn't like cameras though so I wasn't able to get a picture of him.  Little brat.  However, I'll say this for snails: they are pretty damn boring!  I know most of you will be saying "what the hell did you expect?"  And I actually don't know what I was expecting but snails are kind of dull.  Cute.  But dull.  They did somehow start getting more interesting after I added a bowl of water.  Maybe they were just thirsty?

This is Daemon.  He's a bit camera shy apparently.

So here is what I have learned about snails: they poop...a lot.  And it's usually the color of whatever they have eaten (orange poop is weird).  They eat...a lot.  And they poop and eat from the same hole.  I'm really selling the idea of snails as pets right now aren't I?  On the plus side, they move so slowly that it's making it easy to practice with my new camera.  The camera was probably one of the more useless purchases I have made in a while.  Apparently, I don't have as much to take pictures of as I thought I did.  Taking pictures of snails, random pretty sunsets, my cat's nose is quite entertaining though.  But I think the cat disagrees.  Of course half the things I would like to take pictures of, I can't.  Like the baby birds at PAWS, or paddleboarding.  I told my friend that we need a land borne friend to take pictures of us out on the water.  Not that I really want to see how I look in a bathing suit trying to balance on a foam board, but it would be nice to have a memory.  I was told that I can get pictures of the baby bird nursery from the shelter itself.

More of Teeny. Clearly he's the photogenic snail.

Anywho...here are the snail photos!  Aren't they cute?!  Just call me crazy snail lady.

And this is Weeny.  He looks like he's smiling in this one =)

Getting Old Sucks

You would think I was 75 instead of 29.  I went on a run last Sunday, a six mile hike on Monday and then another run on Tuesday.  Apparently, that was all a really bad idea.  I haven't been able to walk without pain since then.  My knees are stiff and weak and hurt like hell!  This is exceptionally difficult because that means that I can't run or hike, or do anything overly active really.  So here's the reason this hits me so hard: my dad was disabled.  He was partially paralyzed from the neck down after suffering from a few strokes.  He went from being an active and healthy man to being trapped in his own body.  He died almost five years ago.  To honor him, I try to stay active.  I know that he couldn't run, so I run.  He couldn't hike, so I hike.  In an odd way, it makes me feel more connected to him.  Losing the ability to do something that honors him is even more painful than my knees.  I love yoga but for a completely different reason.  

My favorite fitness quote is "there will be a day when I can no longer do this. That day is not today."  I certainly hope that continues to be true.  I'm not ready for that day to come just yet.  I want to run a marathon, I want to go hiking in Peru.  So, I went to see an orthopedic doctor who was, as I suspected, unable to really tell me anything I didn't already know.  I guess I have to start going to physical therapy.  I bought knee braces and I'll be trying to take it easy for a while.  I can't really say that I'll succeed given that I have an eight mile hike in Leavenworth with my friend in less than two weeks.  It's supposed to be a pretty intense one too. Let's just hope that Caity won't have to carry me down the mountain...although if anyone would be able to, it would be that girl.  Freaking fit people =/  And the week after that I have a mud run to do for my friend's birthday.  But on the bright side, after 2400 mg of ibuprofen, I was able to go stand up paddle boarding today.  I wasn't very successful at the actual "stand up" part but I didn't lose my prescription sunglasses and I only fell off the board twice.  Which is more than I normally do...especially given that I didn't stand up.  I'm too young to be falling apart!  Let's at least hit the big 3-0 before needing a knee replacement.

Also...I started volunteering and my new phobia is baby birds.  Yes.  Baby birds are terrifying and I'll go into more detail after my first official volunteering shift on Tuesday.