I Ran a Half Marathon and Now I'm Going to Hogwarts!

It's true! All of it!

Yesterday, I ran the Run for Hope Half Marathon in Oxford, Mississippi, a town (and race) known for its excruciating hills, something I was unaware of until the day before the race.  For it was then that, looking through my race packet, I noticed the race's motto was...hold on...let me dig it out for you so I can type it word for word...

"We own the hills of North Mississippi and invite you to join us and make them yours."

I almost vomited just reading that.  Had I been training for hills?  No.  Had I been training at all recently?  No.  I'd been sitting on my ass for the past week and a half because I overdid it and got shin splints.

Though I nearly died (I can't recall ever feeling more like death was imminent than at the end of that race), I ran my best time ever by two full minutes BECAUSE I AM HARDCORE LIKE THAT.

Here I am around Mile 5.  It's about this time that it occurs to me the impossibly steep hill we ran down at the very start of the race is the same hill we will be running up at the end of the race.

Mile 11.5.  I'm smiling because I think I'm almost done, not realizing that most of the rest of the race will be uphill, mostly slow inclines, but also sharp inclines, like the one that had the finish line at the top of it.  Nearly every person in front of me broke on that hill.  Not me.  I almost blacked out, but I didn't walk...

...and my anguish in dealing with the aftermath of that decision is clearly visible in this finish line photo.  After the race, I stumbled around for a while until my vision came back and then I drank beer.  Hooray!

And to answer your question, no.  I do not feel as if I own the hills of North Mississippi now.  I feel as if the hills of North Mississippi handed my ass to me on a platter and it's a miracle that I can still walk today.  

Speaking of today, in a few hours I'm flying to Orlando to meet up with Sam and Alex for five days so we can go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and do other fun, Florida-y things.  If time permits, there will be real-time vacation updates!  If time doesn't permit, then a full recap will come when I'm home.  Either way, expect pictures of Hogwarts.

Fun With Screencapturing

(Click to enlarge.)

Me, according to Google:

Recent search results that have led to this blog:

COME ON.

1.  Two or three months ago, I submitted something to the Class Notes section of my college magazine (along the lines of "hey, I wrote a book, suckas!").  The winter issue of the magazine finally came today and...there were no Class Notes in it for the class of 2004.  There were notes for 2003, there were notes for 2005, and there was nothing in between them.  And the magazine only comes out three times a year:  fall, winter, and summer.  Not spring.  So it'll be six months before the next issue.  By which point the book will have been out for an entire year already.  Jesus.

2.  Did I mention that my book's arrival conveniently coincided with the "Faculty and Alumni New Book Releases" section of the magazine being moved from the printed page to the Rhodes website?  Where no one would ever see it?  For this issue, there was an e-mail sent to all alumni alerting them to the change.  But not for the last issue, which was when my book was actually on the website. 

3.  And how annoying that this was the issue with Kara's obituary.  The one issue that didn't have any news whatsoever from our class.

4.  I was so excited because I thought I was going to get to (finally!!) replace my FIVE-YEAR-OLD phone tomorrow.  I got screwed over - twice - on upgrading, but February 24, 2011 was my day.  Yeah, until I checked online just to make sure and...no, that date is actually February 24, 2012.  I can steal my brother's next upgrade in a month but...God, another month...

5.  I got a letter today from the unemployment office that I couldn't make heads or tails of.  But I did recognize the words "ineligible" and "attorney" so, er, fuck...

6.  Gas is over $3 a gallon right now, as I found out while filling up earlier today.  That's just not cool.

7.  I have to take my car in to get the oil changed tomorrow and every time I take my car in to get the oil changed, something horrible happens and I wind up having to pay thousands of dollars.  I'm looking forward to the day when I can buy a new car, but considering I'm incapable of procuring a new phone or even getting my goddamned book in a freaking alumni magazine, I don't have my fingers crossed that that day is coming any time soon.

And to think, I woke up with such optimism about life this morning...

Cooking with Celebrities, Or Why Tim Allen's Face Annoys Me

When I was in elementary school, I was in the "gifted" program (my IQ was [allegedly] marginally above normal).  Being in the gifted program meant that one day a week, I left my classroom and spent four hours with other "gifted" children learning how to count in Japanese and how to do the Mexican hat dance and how to "sing" in American Sign Language and that sort of crap.  I absolutely loved it.  It was the best part of school for me.

We also wrote poetry and took field trips, and at the end of every school year, we "published" a cookbook called "Cooking with the Stars."  From first grade through fourth grade, our year-end challenge was to write celebrities and ask them to mail us their favorite recipes.  Bafflingly, many of the celebrities actually wrote back.

I, personally, had three successes in my quest for celebrity cooking tips:  local news anchor Kim Hindrew, national news anchor Jane Pauley, and First Lady Barbara Bush.  (In limiting the amount of time I spent watching television, my parents conditioned in me the belief that "fame" was roughly equivalent to "being on the evening news.")   Barbara Bush sent me two pre-printed recipe cards.  Kim Hindrew hand-wrote me a note card, front and back, discussing sandwiches.  And Jane Pauley, master chef, signed the letter that her assistant typed up, telling me that she didn't cook much, but she did like to put a bit of mustard on her kids' grilled cheese sandwiches now and again.

In fifth grade, the gifted program switched to a new teacher and a new curriculum, one that required that when we left our regular classrooms, we went to the library and did research, or sat in silence and memorized other people's poetry instead of writing our own.  Suddenly, the merits of the gifted program plummeted in my eyes.  I didn't want to go to the library.  I wanted to write famous people.  In an act of rebellion, I decided that just because we didn't do fun stuff in school anymore didn't mean I couldn't do it myself.  I was going to put together my own celebrity cookbook.

Older, wiser - I was now a mature ten, after all - my standards for fame were changing.  I remember my determination as I sat at my desk in my room after school, scribbling my requests on Little Mermaid stationary.  I decided not to write up-and-coming news anchor Brian Williams, but instead the Olsen twins (a move that admittedly I have come to regret).  Then I wrote the cast of Step by Step, of Home Improvement, of Family Matters.  I wrote Andy Griffith because Matlock was a guilty pleasure of mine.  And I sat back in triumph, thinking how my cookbook was going to be so much better than any of the cookbooks we had put together as a group.  When I had it ready, I would take it to the gifted program and show the new teacher how things were supposed to be done...

A week or so later, my responses started to trickle in.  One pre-printed postcard after another.  A picture of the cast, a stamped autograph or two, and not so much as a personalized greeting on the back in return.  I didn't get a single recipe.

When Tim Allen's postcard came after the postcard featuring the entire cast of Home Improvement - even though I had only written one letter to Home Improvement, and Tim Allen's card didn't even have a stamped signature on it, as if Tim Allen knew the rest of the cast had already jilted me but he wanted to personally rub it in that I was not worthy of a real response - a new and revelatory thought emerged in my ten-year-old brain:  famous people can be assholes.  To this day, thinking about Tim Allen's smug smile on that postcard brings about feelings of resentment and of culinary dreams lost...

But this being me, I wasn't able to let it go after the first try.  For the next two years or so, I continued to periodically write the television stars I'd come to admire.

None of them ever sent me a recipe.

But the day did come when I got a real autograph.  Signed in Sharpie, on a glossy 8x10 black-and-white production photo, "To Becky," it read.  "Thanks, Tia and Tamera Mowry."

Which is why no one is ever allowed to diss Sister, Sister in my presence.  Ever.

THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND: Hipster Ariel

Admittedly, this made me laugh:

But the twenty-plus variations on this theme using the exact same picture? 

WHY IS THIS MEME SO POPULAR. 

Whoa. Wait. What? Huh?

Brody Jenner and Avril Lavigne are dating?

In what kind of fucked-up bizarro universe does that pairing make sense?

This is why I am unable to care about celebrity news.  Ever.  (And am thus about a year behind the times on these two being together.)

Flashback Post: The One with the Kermit T-shirt

Originally posted April 23, 2007:

Saturday afternoon, my parents decided they wanted to hang out in Midtown and invited me to come along.  I had stopped off at their house for reasons that are too complicated to get into and I was wearing my "I was a gay cowboy before it was cool" shirt.  My mom suggested I maybe change my attire because we were heading into one of the more progressive areas in the city of Memphis and, this being the South, our family tries to be extra conscientious about not offending people who aren't white Southern Baptists.  Not that either of us could come up with a rational scenario in which someone would be offended by my shirt but...the South is weird.  So off it went.

I had exactly one short-sleeved t-shirt in my closet at my parents' house and it had a picture of Kermit the Frog on roller skates on it, along with the words "Roller Derby."  I bought the shirt back when I was a senior in college and used to wear it all the time.  My friend Kara was an RA that year and she informed me that a group of her residents wanted to give me a makeover.  They wanted to straighten my hair, stop me from wearing blue eye-shadow, and one of them had said, "I mean, she was wearing a shirt with Kermit on it today, for God's sake!"  Kara relayed all of this to me over dinner at the Rat one night and I was not amused.  I don't think anyone likes to hear that a group of sophomores thinks you look like crap and maybe the correct thing to do would have been to say, "fuck them," but I opted to just stop wearing the Kermit shirt.  The eye-shadow stayed.

So I hadn't worn the shirt since.  I graduated, stuck it in my closet, and moved on with life.  But I pulled it on Saturday and I headed out the door with my parents.  We ended up sitting outside at Celtic Crossing for dinner when, I kid you not, half of the girls from Kara's floor came and sat down at the table next to us.  At least six or eight of them.  Who even knew any of these people were still in Memphis?!  The ONE TIME I wear that shirt and I see the lot of them for the first time in over three years.

They ignored me and I ignored them and I'm sure not a one of them would remember insulting my shirt.  But I remembered.  Oh, I remembered.

And seriously, what are the chances.

Well, Look at That. We Glossed Right Over Valentine's Day.

That was on purpose, you know.  Because I spent my Valentine's Day locked away looking for work and listening to Justin Bieber.  And who wants to celebrate that?

HEY, LET'S CHECK UP ON AARON CARTER.

Last we heard, Mr. Carter was checking himself into rehab for being a dork, but now he's apparently out of rehab, and it was only yesterday that this happened, and I totally didn't even know that, but because of the psychic bond Aaron and I share, I just woke up this morning thinking, 'I should Google that pimp.'

So I think some congratulations are in order.  For me.  For still remembering he exists after all these years.

Also?  NEW ALBUM ON THE WAY, FOLKS.

Don't even try to pretend that you don't read this blog 'cause you're always hoping to hear that Aaron Carter's working on a new album.  Don't.  Even.

Becky Goes to See Justin Bieber: Never Say Never...and It's AWESOME.

Okay, look, this movie was little more than a slick advertising piece and I still think Justin Bieber is a punk-ass sixteen-year-old Selena-Gomez-perving helmet-headed twerp.

But by God that boy showed me a good time for two hours today and that's more than Ben Affleck's ever done for me.  Fuck you, Affleck.

Becky's Unsolicited Movie Review for Justin Bieber: Never Say Never:

I NOW LIKE JUSTIN BIEBER.

(In the sense that he seems like an alright kid who's genuinely appreciative of his fans, friends, and family and has a decent work ethic.  Not that I "like" Justin Bieber because EWWWWW he's young and has creepy hair and sings like a girl.)

There is Bieber music on my iTunes now.  There.  It's been said.

Becky Attempts to See Justin Bieber: Never Say Never...

...but it was sold out.

Instead, I saw The Company Men, and for real WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.

All I wanted tonight was a little pick-me-up.  I wanted some punk-ass sixteen-year-old Selena-Gomez-perving helmet-headed twerp to use the magic of 3D glasses to look me in the eye and say, "Bitch, never fucking say never."

Instead, Ben Affleck looked me in the eye and said, "Becky, your life is terrible and I would like to reinforce why in the most painfully realistic way possible."

So, my Unsolicited Movie Review for The Company Men is as follows:

Don't go see this movie if you're unemployed.

Bieber.  Matinee.  Tomorrow.  It's ON.

Running with Becky: In My Rearview Mirror is the Motherfucking Law Edition

I ran tonight.

Yeah, the Breakaway run was canceled, but you know what?  Fuck that.  Fuck canceling because of "snow" and "ice" and "treacherous conditions."  I was one of six people who showed up, and the only girl, which makes me...one of the boys.  Or something.  Anyway.

I was done early and was waiting to go to see Hood to Coast with a fellow runner who was still out running.  Since the store was closed, I was stuck hanging out in the parking lot by myself.

Oh, what's that?  A cop?  Checking up on the store next to Breakaway and asking me if I just came out of it, like maybe I'd knocked over the joint or something?  (This is Memphis after all.)

"No, I was just out for a run!" I said cheerily.

At roughly that exact moment, two other runners showed up in the parking lot (note:  they had run seven miles and were getting back mere minutes after my 4.5 mile run).  There were high-fives over our hardcore-d-ness for showing up to begin with.

A second cop car joined the first and the two officers watched our exchange.  The first one rolled down his window.

"You do know it's COLD AS SHIT OUT HERE, don't you?" he said.

"Yes," the three of us replied.

"HAHA, just making sure," he said.

Runners are fucking weird.

Today in Beatles History...

Forty-seven years ago today, this happened in front of 73 million Americans, the largest television audience ever at that time:



Years later, humanity would commemorate this milestone in pop culture by uploading several thousand incorrectly identified YouTube videos of various Beatles appearances, half of them not even from the Ed Sullivan Show.  BUT WHATEVS 'cause this is still an awesome thing to watch, because of the hair and the music and those kickass arrows.

(If the "forty-seven years ago" thing didn't make you feel old, then the fact that George Harrison had not yet turned twenty-one surely will...)

NEW FEATURE: Things I've Found in Drawers

As my mom told me at the time, "Jesse saw something in you, Becky.  He wouldn't have said 'keep at it!' if he thought you were a serial killer."

Running with Becky: We Are the Champions Edition

Your author, who really is a terrible runner, ran her first race of 2011 on Saturday.

And she fucking placed in that race.  ME.  I PLACED.  SECOND PLACE.  IN A RACE WITH MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE IN MY AGE CATEGORY.  (Results here.)

Hell yes.  Let's look at some pictures of me:

Look at that stride.  That is the stride of a person with larger-than-average kneecaps.

This picture exhibits the joy of running a good race...although in this case the joy was from the photographer bellowing at me that I was almost to the finish line.

Well, this one's not too flattering, is it?

Granted had the weather been better and more people had shown up, I wouldn't have placed.  But shut the hell up, I ran an 8:52 final mile.  They didn't give away medals, but instead long-sleeved tech shirts, which means that the bigger victory here was that I got free clothing and thus saved money.

Everything in my life comes back to my stinginess.  Everything.

Becky's Super Bowl Recap

THERE'S ANOTHER FAST AND FURIOUS MOVIE?

YES.

YES TO THE MOTHERFUCKING YES.

YES.

YES.

I have never understood football.

BUT YES TO PAUL WALKER AND VIN DIESEL.

YES.

Inaugural Cheap Beer of the Month Club!

Oh ho, what's that?  It's the first Friday of the month?  Well, that can only mean one thing:  it's time for our CHEAP BEER OF THE MONTH CLUB.  Which I am starting.  Today.  Here's how it works:

1.  I drink cheap beer.  Because I'm cheap.  But...
2.  Not all cheap beers are created equal.  So...
3.  Obviously I should have a regular segment where I discuss the merits of various cheap beers.  And...
4.  If you are cool, then you will drink this cheap beer with me.  Beer snobbery is a luxury of the pompous and the employed, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who are pompous and employed and think they're too good to drink Bud Light.  Speaking of which...

Unfortunately, I sort of forgot that this was the first Friday of the month until, er, this morning.  So I'll just have to go with what's currently in my refrigerator.  Fortunately, what's in my refrigerator is cheap beer.  In fact, it's the most popular cheap beer in the United States:

Yeah, Bud Light.  In a can.  It was on sale this week.  Don't act like you're above it.  Do not even fucking act like you're above Bud Light in a can.

CHEAP BEER OF THE MONTH FOR FEBRUARY 2011:  BUD LIGHT (in a can)

Gas station or grocery store?  I bought this particular 18-pack at my local Kroger, but there isn't a gas station in America that isn't stocked to the gills with Budweiser-y goodness.

Price:  $14.99 for an 18-pack, so, with tax, about $0.88 a can.  (Tip:  A true Cheap Beer Aficionado never pays more than a $1 per beer.)

Swill quality:  With 1 being water and 10 being Guinness, we're at about 4.5.

Packaging/label:  Pretty generic.  There is nothing special about that bold blue aluminum...except that it has Bud Light inside of it.

Shame factor:  Moderate.  Aforementioned beer snobs will undoubtedly look down on you for drinking this, but they're beer snobs.  They have much bigger issues in life to deal with than your beer selection.

Overall:  This is a solid cheap beer, earning points both for being available at literally every establishment in the United States where money changes hands, and for being on sale roughly every day of the week at your local Exxon.  Plus, it has a smooth flavor that makes drinking 7 to 15 of them in one sitting not only possible, but potentially enjoyable.  There's a reason why this is the most drunk beer in America, and I don't know what that reason is.  But I do know that I've had a hell of a lot worse.

Natalie Morales Lives Out Dream of Every Woman on Earth

Who among us hasn't longed for a Kate Middleton dress and a life-sized cutout of Prince William of our very own?

Natalie Morales, WERK IT GURL.

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(Sister post on my other blog.)