Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

For the past five or six years, right around this time of the season, my sister and brother-in-law host a very chichi martini party. It’s catered and waitered and their (considerable) house is filled with about 75 guests–all duded upscale in tuxes or little black dresses or whathaveyou along those lines.

Fortunately, I was not planning to wear one of those little black dresses this year.

(While I have lost about 30 lbs since I started running, I am not yet downsized enough for that sorta thing, heh-heh… It’s a goal, though. It’s a goal. )

However, if I had been planning to wear one of those little Chanel numbas, I’d've had to scramble now to find an alternative. Because, for the first time since I started running a year and a half ago, I took a flying header Friday night when I was out for a run. It was towards the darker end of dusk and I was just coming out at the end of a nature trail onto a lighted street and I dunno if I missed a curb or what but I found myself momentarily free of Mother Earth’s gravitational grasp only to abruptly crash land on my hands and knees and roll onto my left side like I was a paratrooper landing at Arnhem. I felt more surprised than hurt and after I stood up and brushed the dirt off I started running again. (Possibly just to get the hell away from the people in the car who witnessed the entire thing and were probably sitting there, stupefied at the sight of this person who came flying outta the bushes, dropped and rolled, and then stood up and looked around with one of those furtive “Did anybody see that?” glances. To quote the estimable Pee Wee Herman, “I meant to do that.”) But when I got home and peeled my running pants down past my knees, I found this.

…which would not look too sexy, methinks, on display beyond the hemline of a Little Black Dress^TM.

For the first year or so after I started running, I rarely ran in the evenings. After the alarm going off at 5am and then a full day of work, I just didn’t have the energy to go out and run when I got home at night. But in recent months–since the hot summer weather abated–I have been taking my weekday runs after work and I have adjusted well enough so that it isn’t a struggle anymore. In fact, I’ve found that it has become a nice way to shake off the day and clear my head. I look forward to it.

Being a natural klutz (we all hafta be a “natural” at something, right?), I am usually pretty good about watching where I’m going–in specific effort to avoid exactly what happened last night. My inclination to keep keep my head down (at chi running clinics, my coach is always telling me, “Head up, Carla–head up!” ) to watch where the fuck I’m putting my feet is for self-preservation: the sidewalks and roads around town are an uneven mess. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy running the Howard Watson Nature Trail. It’s flat and well-maintained crushed gravel–a little easier to negotiate than the tilted, ice-heaved cement sidewalks and crumbling, pockmarked side streets around town.

But it’s also unlit. And as I was getting close to the end of one segment (part of the trail runs through town, so there are a few intersections with streets), trying to decide whether or not it was still light enough to run the next segment and then return home on the lighted streets, down I went. My hands flew up to brace my reintroduction to the ground and the only thought that went through my head was something along the lines of, umm, “Oh, shit!”

All the way home I kept waiting for the pain to hit and make me slow to a walk. But it never happened. That’s why I was actually surprised when I got home and got my first look at my knees. Of course, they looked a lot worse than that photo–the blood was smeared and I couldn’t immediately tell how much skin had been scraped off. There’d been only a teeny hole ripped in my left pant leg, though, so when I got a look the unexpectedly bloody messes that lie underneath the pants, fear sucked my heart up into my throat. “Oh no, I’m fuuuuuucked.” But when I carefully dabbed them clean, I found that most of the initial frightening sight was just superficial. When I showed my dad, he said, “Well, it could be worse. It could’ve been your chin.” But I thought about it and told him that I’d kind of prefer it if it were my chin because at least a scraped chin wouldn’t threaten my ability to run.

Can you believe it?! I can’t. That’s how far it’s come for me. I’d rather go to the fancy-dress party with a big ol’ scab on my chin than risk an injury that might curtail my running. Good grief, I hardly know myself anymore.

I popped a coupla naproxen, applied some antibiotic, and then spent the evening on the couch, watching a movie (La Haine–which I highly recommend!) with ice packs on both knees to try to keep the swelling to a minimum. It seems to have helped because I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I awoke and peeked under the covers to find that my knees 1. weren’t very swollen, and 2. weren’t purple with bruising. I think it’ll be awhile before I kneel down on ‘em, but it could be a lot worse. If anything, my left arm feels like it got the worst of it. So I’ll lay off running for a few days and then take it from there. Not sure about swimming. I know it wouldn’t (physically) hurt, but I think I’ll wait ’til some scabs form. (Because, besides copious amounts of chlorine, I try not to think about what’s in that toxic water in the Y pool. I see all those little kids screaming and splashing in there with me and I shudder every time some of that water accidentally goes down my throat… *gag*)

You can count on me using my recovery from the tumble as an excuse to not dance at the martini party. Small mercies are better than none.

And, incidentally, you can also see why I won’t be wearing open-toed shoes at the party.

…at least the black skin finally fell off the offending toe. (For quite a few weeks there the whole freakin’ end of my toe looked like it was gonna rot and fall off. Like some kinda slow-moving necrotizing fasciitis. Guh.) And the nail looks closer to departure. But lookee at the nail beside it. Now it’s fucked too! Sweet jayzuz, I’m already wearing shoes that are a size and half larger than I wore a year ago. In an effort to preserve my feet, I’m afraid my next pair of shoes is gonna look like these:

Not. Sexy.

While I was dogging it through the back stretch of this year’s Death Race, I was thinking back to what I’d written on the wall at the pre-race runners’ expo, the day before the race… In front of a 50-foot-long wall, each runner was handed a magic marker and asked to write our name and our reason for running the race. I paused, pondered, then wrote, “It seemed like a good idea at the time”–one of my favourite examples of Famous Last Words. (Incidentally, for my tombstone, it will either be that or a quote from “Bright Future in Sales”, by Fountains of Wayne: “I gotta get my shit together/’Cause I can’t live like this forever”)…

But the final stretch and then the post-race sensations (even including the calf- and thigh-cramps that made my eyes bug out in surprise!) changed my mind. The feeling of accomplishment washed that self-doubt down the drain. And that feeling of accomplishment that I get after a good run (or, admittedly, after a good post here, haha) is worth a helluva lot to me. So I don’t think it’ll turn out to have been the first and last half-marathon I run (well, unless something unforeseen happens, that is).

But one thing I’ve noticed in my post-race runs is this: I am enjoying them a lot more now that I don’t have (what sometimes felt like) the sword of Damocles hanging over my head.

That’s how the race felt to me while I was preparing for it. I think it was partly because I’d never run a race that long before (although I’d run that far before–just not in a race) and partly because I was working through an injury in the last five weeks before race-day. The Great Unknown was this: could I prepare adequately?

In theory, I knew what I hadda do to best prepare myself. I mean, I did have a training schedule from the Running Room, and it spelled out how far, how fast, and how often I should run each week leading up to the race. But the injury meant that I couldn’t really follow it very closely. I mean, I started out doing the speed training but quit that when the knee started acting up. Never did get to the part where I was supposed to do hills. And the distances I could go from one run to the next had very little in common with what was prescribed in the schedule. One day, I might be able to run exactly as far as the schedule said. Then, a couple days later, my knee might act up and I’d have to cut the prescribed run for that day in half. It left me feeling pretty hesitant about my prospects in Toronto. I didn’t know how important the training schedule’s prescribed prep might be. I did know that a veteran runner I know uses those training schedules all the time. And I believe he tries to stick pretty closely to them.

And here I was, following the schedule about as accurately as I follow the average recipe. This is not a good thing. ‘Cause I don’t follow recipes as closely as mebbe I should. That means I can’t bake to save my ass, but I can cook. With cooking, you have some leeway to wing it. Not so with baking, I’ve discovered. Like posted speed limits, I tend to think of recipe instructions as suggestions. So if I’m cooking chili, that’s okay. I can usually fix it if I only have one eye trained on the recipe and lean too far in one direction. If I’m baking a cake and make the same sorta mistake error in judgment, I’m basically fucked. As is the (would-be) cake…

(This cake is not one of my own failures. I just found this photo on the interweb. Incidentally, could they have found an uglier table cloth? Sweet jayzuz, I feel like I’ve just been poked in the eye with a stick!)

So. Would the training schedule be more like a cookie recipe or a soup recipe? The uncertainty was a bit nerve-wracking, as you might imagine. And that took a lot of fun out of the running.

But we know now that it turned out okay. Would I have had a better finish-time if I’d been able to follow the training schedule to a “T”? Beats me. I’ll have to try again and see.

In any case, in the past six weeks since the race, the fear of the unknown, the stress of the injury, and the pressure I felt because of those things and because everybody knew I was doing this has all lifted. And my regular runs have been thoroughly enjoyable. I was out splashing through the rain a couple nights ago. I was out in a bone-chilling wind tonight. Smiling throughout each run. Shaking off my work day. Snapping my fingers to the music on the iPod. Feeling relaxed and confident enought to even start to incorporate into my runs a little of the chi running technique (after half a dozen clinics–all of them delivered as free “refresher courses” after the first one, thanks to my instructor–and reading the book, it has started to sink into my brain and body a bit). It feels great to have the fun back.

Not sure where to begin this (half-)marathon tale… with the hotel door that I broke in anger

or the last-minute pre-race surprise poop

or the drunks serenading our hotel room from the street at 3am

or I dunno. I just dunno.

Well, mebbe not the poop. That’d prolly be Too Much Information. But it was a surprise–there’s no getting around that. Only meant to pee when I got inside the port-a-potty at Metro Hall at 6:45am. Then I realized, oh agh, WTF? How come I didn’t hafta go half an hour ago at the hotel?! Oh well. Better here, now, than in my shorts, later. (You know that about running, right? It gives yer guts a real good shake. Shaky-shake. Turns everything to slush. One dares not fart, lest… well, you get the pitcha.)

…

Okay, for those of you who are still reading this… you diehards out there… the rest of the tale.

The drunks came before the door, so let’s start with them.

First of all, the hotel where my sister Chris and I stayed on Saturday night is right next door to a rather large pub. Near the U of T campus. On a street populated by frat houses. You can see where this is going, right? I hadn’t stayed there on a Saturday night before. Nobody will need to remind me to never do that again. That bad situation was compounded by the fact that it was Nuit Blanche in Tronna. And our hotel was located in one of the three “zones”. So that meant there were thousands upon thousands of “extra” people in the streets around the hotel. I turned in around 11pm and just lay there, listening to the people in the street. Who became louder, natch, the laterer it got and the drunkerer they got. There was some kind of singalong around 3am. It went on interminably. I buried my head underneath the pillow, conjuring up sheep to count. Quiet sheep. Some kind of mute sheep, I conjured. Then the door slamming commenced. Apparently, some of the drunken louts were staying in our hotel. And it didn’t occur to them that doors don’t hafta be slammed to be closed. Wham! Crash! Bang! Then sounds of partying next door. Wham! goes the door again. Crash! I whimper from underneath the pillow. Either the drunks eventually pass out or I do. Whatever the case, the next thing I know my alarm is going off at 5am. Oh joy, oh bliss, it’s race day and I have gotten about an hour and a half of sleep.

I drag my sorry ass outta bed and stomp over to the door to our hotel room. I open it about two feet and then fling it shut. Wham! I do it again. Crash! Wakey-wakey, drunky neighbours! Then I stomp off to the washroom to shower. When our cab arrives at 6am and we go to leave the hotel room, Chris goes to open the door and stops. She looks up. Then looks around at Little Miss Oblivious^TM (me). She catches my eye and I look up.

This thing is hanging off the door jam, its six sizable screws ripped right outta the wooden door.

(If I’d had my wits about me, I’d've taken a photo of it hanging there like a broken arm. It was an awesome display of strength and stupidity all rolled into one. So it would’ve fit right in around here, wouldn’t it?)

“Oops. Me no know own strength.” My sister looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Me gonna hafta pay for that, betcha.” I raise my half-eaten banana over my head with one hand and thump my chest with the other. (Not really. Just said for effect.)

But the cab is waiting and so I will deal with it later. There is lotsa time to craft a suitable lie. So we squeeze out the door and take the cab down to the race start/finish at Metro Hall.

It’s a beautiful morning–clear and temperate. We wander around for a bit, I loosen my hip joints like Dave The Physiotherapist has taught me, and we go to the start corral. Port-o-potties line the road for half a block. I went before I left the hotel, but had been advised to try to go again 15 minutes before the race start. So I get in line. Still don’t feel like I hafta go. I wait. My turn. I take a breath before I open the door and then step inside. God, I hate these things. How long can I hold my breath? I go to pee, and… oh. Surprise. (I will say no more about that.)

Afterwards I tell my sis and we laugh. She echoes my “better now rather than later” theory.

Okay. Really. Enough of that.

At about 6:55, she gives me hug and wishes me luck and slips out of the runners’ corral. I have a dry (parched, actually) mouth and wish I had some gum or a drink of water. I put my iPod on (without turning it on just yet–I want to start the race without it) and wait for the start of the race. It’s scheduled for 7:00. I don’t hear the gun, but I do hear a roar of voices as folks cheer the race’s start. I am far enough back from the front-runners that I am still standing around, waiting, 5 minutes later. You see, the marathoners and half-marathoners all start at the same time, so there are about 12,500 of us standing there on Wellington, in the dark, shuffling from one foot to the other, shaking out stiffness, stretching, praying, de-stressing, whatever. Eventually the folks around me start to move. At a slow walk. I cross the start line at 7:07am.

This is what I don’t understand about chip-time versus gun-time. Why does the latter take precedence over the former? The gun went off at 7:00 but I didn’t actually cross the start line ’til seven minutes later. Why do those seven minutes count against me? Can anybody out there explain the sense of this?

The beginning of the race is along Wellington, through the canyon between the highrises of the Toronto financial district. The sun is just coming up, but we are running in the shadows of the towers on either side of the street. I run along the path between the streetcar tracks. I had been advised to start off nice and easy and not worry about all the people who’d be charging past me. So that’s what I did. And charge by me, they did! I didn’t let it trouble me. I was enjoying myself too much.

People line the red Scotiabank barricades that stand curbside and applaud everybody who runs past. Y’know, I hafta give a lotta credit to the people who come out to cheer on runners in a race like this. Their encouragement is genuinely heartening. They don’t know who the hell you are but they cheer for you anyway. When your name is on your bib (as mine was this time),

people–complete strangers, mind you!–will cheer for you by name and, corny as it likely sounds, it’s a huge and effective encouragement. I want to give them all a hug. This, coming from a misanthrope of considerable magnitude. Dig on that awhile.

The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront race is known for being a flat (and thereby fast) course…

(click the map to see the whole course)

There are a coupla overpasses on Lakeshore Blvd. and I’m here to tellya that they’re easy the first time you run over ‘em going outbound but not quite so easy the second time, coming back. The half-marathon runners start with the marathoners and we take the same course until a few kilometers before the end of the half, at which point the marathoners’ course diverges and continues on while the halfers gladly head to the finish line.

The first 12k are a breeze for me. I am smiling. I am singing along to my iPod. I am rubbernecking. I am enjoying myself immensely. And, despite the lack of sleep, I feel great! Hell, I don’t even stop for the first 8k. I slow down to get a drink at each water station, but I don’t walk for longer than it takes to gulp down the contents of the cup. Right around 8k, heading eastbound on Lakeshore, I start to see the elite marathoners returning towards downtown and (points well past downtown!). I am humbled by these athletes–they’re truly impressive to watch. They’re followed by the sub-elites and the quickest of the marathoners and halfers.

I am starting to wonder how close I am to the turnaround point. I really didn’t take too close a look at the map beforehand, but I thought we’d turn at Parkside Road, which runs along the east side of High Park. But I get to Parkside and see that I was wrong about that. We’re going on past Parkside. Okay. Must be the next cross-street where we hang a u-ey. But when I get to the next cross-street, that ain’t it either. Keep going. This happens, I think, a couple more times, and I am starting to wonder WTF. I take a minute’s walk-break at the 10k point where there is a water/Gatorade station. As far as I can see, I can see people running ahead of me. Meaning: the turnaround point still isn’t within my view. I am a bit perplexed but set out again. I am starting to feel somewhat less exhuberant than I have to this point. I think that miser’s sleep is starting to catch up to me (which couldn’t be very hard, seeing as I don’t run very fucking fast).

At last I come to Windermere and make the U-turn, hoorah! But, wow, it feels like I have just hit a wall. I am getting very tired. And thirsty. Very thirsty. Remember how I had a dry mouth before the race’s start? The cups of water and Gatorade between then and now have really not made a difference. And I’m sweating a lot. Too much, I think, for what is, really, quite a nice day for running. It’s not particularly hot or sunny or humid, but I am sweating and parched like I have a fuckin’ hangover. And there’s no way in hell I could have one of those. I have not been pushing myself unduly. I mean, I’ve not been doing anything that I haven’t done countless times before. So I hafta lay the blame on that short night’s sleep. I can’t think of anything else that might be the cause.

Anyway, it means that the trip back downtown is a helluva lot harder than the trip out. Again, I take a drink at each water station and walk all the way through each one. Soon, though, those pauses aren’t enough and I hafta stop in between water stations and walk a bit. This is all very unusual for me. I mean, on that 25k run I took a couple weeks before the race, I slowed to a walk 4-5 times total. The only good thing I can say about how I feel as I’m running at this point in the race is that at least my damned knee doesn’t hurt.

I didn’t tellya about my knee. Remember how I told you about how I incur jinxes whenever I have the nerve to mention something I have hopes for? Well, right after risking the wrath of the Great God Jinx by admitting that I had registered for this race, I came down with a knee injury. No kidding. It was, like, two days later. Unfuckingbelievable. So I spent the months of August and September making weekly visits to Dave The Physiotherapist. My training schedule went out the proverbial window (’cause I could no longer run as far as I was supposed to each week and I abandoned the speed & hill training I had just started) and I hadda just wing it. ‘Cause for a while there I couldn’t run more than 6-8k at a time. I’d be hobbled by that point, the outside of my left knee feeling like that damned midget had returned and was surreptitiously stabbing me in the other knee this time. So I went back to Dave and he bent and folded me just so and gradually my knee improved. Eventually, I was finding that the knee would hurt from kilometer 3 until about kilometer 6 or 7 and then it would work itself out and I’d be okay to keep running. Only my weekly long run would be outside. The rest of ‘em were on the treadmills at the Y because that was marginally easier on my knees.

As you can imagine, the state of my knees–later compounded by the state of my toes (don’t look here)–added stress to my race prep. Until I ran that 25k and could still walk the day afterward (albeit with a monstrous black toe), I honestly wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to run this race. And all my troubles started because I’d had the gall to actually mention my plans aloud here (so to speak). So I have (re-)learned that lesson and will go back to keeping my damned mouth shut when there’s something I’m hopeful about or shooting for.

So. The knee is quiet but those 8-9k on the backstretch are really wringing the sweat and energy outta me. The overpasses that were barely noticeable going out feel like the Contifuckingnental Divide coming back. I know I’ll be turning back north on Bay Street, but I can’t remember where it is–is it the next cross-street? No. Is it the next cross-street? No. Is it the next cross-street? No. Sweet jayzuz, is it the next cross-street? NO. Keep in mind that I am running along underneath the Gardiner Expressway–nice and shady but with a reputation for raining chunks of concrete onto the road below. That’d leave a mark, I fret. Finally–having distracted myself by focussing on the possibility of being nailed by a chunk of the Gardiner–I see people ahead of me turning onto Bay Street. At last! At last!!

Y’know how people talk about getting their “second wind” in endurance challenges of this sort? Well, that so-called second wind really woulda come in handy around the 12k mark when the “first wind” went outta my sails. But it doesn’t show up until closer to the 20k mark, when I round the corner from Bay onto Wellington and can see the finish line a few blocks ahead. I shake my exhaustion and the smile returns to my face. I run past hundreds of spectators who line the barricades and cheer and clap for all the runners. As I approach the finish line, I hear somebody on a loud-speaker announce my name and hometown and he adds “and she’s got her iPod on”. (Apple, you can email me and I’ll tell you where you can send my cheque.) I cross the finish line with a big shit-eating grin on my face.

Somebody puts a medal around my neck

while somebody else holds out a foil blankie, which I don’t want. I want “Water!” “Water?” I croak at a volunteer. “Right over there,” she points, and I make a beeline for what looks like a 50-foot-long series of tables covered in bottles of water. I grab two. Chug. Weave over to the other side of the road and slug back a cup of red Gatorade. (Yes, the flavour is “red”. It tastes “red”. I think it is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. But I also think I might be a tad delirious.) Stagger back across the road and get another bottle of water, then start to make my way through the finish corral. Banana–check. Apple–check. Bagel–nah, I don’t think I could choke one down. Would really love a Freezie like they had at the Crim last year, but I don’t see anything like that. Damn.

Realllllllly want a Freezie.

Settle for the banana and the apple and the “red”-flavoured Gatorade.

As I am getting funnelled through the finish corral, I can feel the muscles in my calves and upper thighs starting to freak out a little. This is a first for me. I find a spot at some bike lockers and try to stretch the muscles. Oy vey. This hurts. I’m not used to this. Must’ve taken too much time between stopping running and starting the stretching. Beats me. Anyhow, Chris finds me and once my leg muscles stop throwing tantrums, she takes this:

I must admit that while I was in the throes of battling through those kilometers on the backstretch, I told myself I’d never hafta do this again. The same thought occurred to me as I tried to stretch the cramps out of my legs afterwards. But the next day… I thought, well, that wasn’t so bad. I could do that again. And next time, I will do it faster.

…

Oh. And the lie? About the hotel door? Yeah, I came up with something. With help from my sis. Seems I’m not the only devious thinker in the fambly.

No, it doesn’t feel any better than it looks.

…that’s something that everyone needs a little bit of every once in awhile. The song “Energy” by The Apples in Stereo provided a nice shot of it when I was out for my run this morning. Enjoy!

With the intention of going for my weekly long run this morning, I woke up when my alarm went off and then… just… lay there. Snuggled back down into the feather bed and hit the snooze button a few times. Finally sighed and got up around 6:30 and started to get ready to go. But just couldn’t seem to work up any enthusiasm for it and decided that might be a cue to take a break today. There is a little twinge in my right rear-hip that cropped up sometime after my lap swimming yesterday. I don’t think it’s anything serious, but at this point I’d rather be safe than sorry.

‘At this point’ being that point where I’m pretty sure I’m going to try my first half-marathon this fall.

A coupla months ago, while I was out on my Sunday morning run (which, at the time, was typically about 8k) I decided, as a lark, to just. keep. going. I was feeling good and I thought I would see if I could get out to Bright’s Grove and back. Well, I did. I totalled it up when I got home and discovered I’d run 15k. When I mentioned that to a couple friends, they pointed out that another kilometer and I’d've run the equivalent of 10 miles. I like round numbers. So the next week, I ran 16k. Ten fucking miles–it hardly seemed possible, y’know? I ran 17k the next week. Then went back to 16k for two or three weeks. Then jumped to 18.5k a couple weeks ago and then just a shade under 20k last week. So. I am confident that I can run the half-marathon distance (21k). For me, it’s just a matter of trying to run faster. My kind-hearted running mentor keeps telling me that I mustn’t worry about my speed (or, rather, my lack thereof). But, hey, that’s easy for him to say–he runs a lot faster than I do! But I will take his advice to heart and not push myself too hard and risk injury. If I can get a little faster, that’s great. If I can’t, well, it ain’t the end of the world. At least I’m in the race, eh? Eventually, I’ll get faster.

I’ve mentioned my tentative plans to family and a few friends, but have kept mostly quiet about it. It seems like I doom hopes and plans as soon as I have the temerity to actually mention them to someone. God mocks me. (Not that I don’t deserve mocking–I dole out more than my fair share of it, after all!) My natural instinct has always been to just keep quiet about my hopes and desires and this is a shy habit that I have been trying to break. But, often, it seems like mebbe it’s better to just keep my hopes hidden. Then I’m the only one who knows when my heart breaks over some new disappointment.

Anyhow, nothing’s written in stone yet, but I am (half-assedly) training for this year’s Tronna Waterfront race. There’s a full marathon and a half marathon. Not sure I’ll ever run a full marathon, but I think a half is within my reach. So I finally bit the bullet and registered for it today.

“Come run past the sparkling water of Tronna puddles!”
(Incidentally, if you ever see me wearing a hat like that one, I hereby give you permission to slap it offa me.)

I had tried to talk a few people into running it with me (well… not ‘with’ me, exactly, since those I asked actually run faster than I do… we might start at the same time, but we sure wouldn’t be running the race together, heh-heh), but I think Laurie and Kelly are going to run the local half, instead, and my sister’s back problems are squashing her attempts to get back into running (she ran the Detroit marathon 3 years ago, but hasn’t run much since). My friends asked me if I might prefer to run the Sarnia race rather than the Tronna one but, I dunno… I guess it just sounds more fun to me to go run someplace new.

Mebbe I can at least talk ‘em into coming down for the weekend with me. Laurie? Kelly? You up for a weekend in The Big Stink? A little shopping, a nice nosh, a room with a view… Yer not gonna make me do this all alone, areya?