InnerTeub

I think it’s easy – especially for daughters – to write about their moms. Hell, I just deleted 700 words about my mom. But it’s Father’s Day, and that seems as good a time as any to muse about what my dad has taught me. (Ed. note: this is not a comprehensive list. My dad has taught me a lot, but his daughter was not always the best at retaining these lessons)

1. Bridges Freeze Before Roads:

My dad is an engineer. Learning how to drive was first an education in how a car works. When you shift, what exactly was happening with the gears. How the oil worked to keep the engine from exploding. (I remember the explanation for none of these things. I… I am not an engineer.) Every time we would drive over a bridge in the winter, my dad would tell us again why bridges freeze before roads. To this day, I cannot drive over any bridge without thinking about it, and, if with others, piping up and letting them know: bridges freeze before roads because of REASONS.

2. Phil Spector and His Wall of Sound

My dad loves music. He would drive me to school on semi-frequently and we’d spend the 40 minute drive singing along to great stuff. I got an amazing music education on these rides: why you have to appreciate the early, Cream days of Clapton before you can even dive into Timepieces, Linda Ronstadt has some seriously questionable attitudes about men (see also: Stevie Nicks), Statler Brothers and Steely Dan were geniuses, real men sing along to Phantom and Les Mis with no hesitation, and Phil Spector was the first- and best- at creating that famed “Wall of Sound”. Years after I was kid, my brother and I were driving from DC to Maryland shore and he pulled out the Les Mis CDs to sing along to on our car trip. We both knew all the words. Our dad raised us with some great music.

3. Golf is ridiculous

Ok, this one I may have internalized far beyond his actual point, but my dad worked a lot, and I remembering him commenting that golf seemed like a sport for people trying to avoid their families on the weekend. It was probably a throw away comment he doesn’t even remember now, but I could see his point: he didn’t get a lot of time with us, in the grand scheme, so going to play a 6 hour game during the weekend wasn’t really a good plan. But to this day I have a completely adverse reaction to golf. I feel like that’s ok.

4. Speaking of working…

… my favorite way to spend Saturdays used to be to go hang out at my dad’s office while he worked. I had an old briefcase of his that I’d fill with coloring books and books and videos and I’d go entertain myself at the office while he worked. I loved it. I used to ask if we could go in, and if he wasn’t planning to go, I’d ask if he’d consider it. Now when I look back at this I think of a couple of things: a) I’ve been a dork for a lot longer than I realized, and like, damn, Liz, go find a playground and some friends, right? b) self-entertainment for the m-f’ing win. Damn, I was a kid content in my own head, for real. c) I was the only girl kid in my family, but at no point have I ever felt … like a girl, in this respect. I loved going in to the office with my dad. When I hear the wars waging about women in the workplace, and I feel in practice the discrimination, it’s all very real, but it never occurred to me I wouldn’t work. My dad used to say that he didn’t really like working weekends, but he did like being good at his job, and man if that doesn’t resonate me as an adult who works her share of weekends.

5. Stop being a pain

I think I was 17 when my dad told me “I’ll always love you, but I don’t always have to like you.”  That was a really great – and deserved – way to tell me to stop being a such a pain in the ass. Not only does every 17 year old need to hear that they’re not such a special snowflake that their behavior doesn’t matter, but it’s helped me think about how I want my current family to feel about me. I know they love me. I want them to like me. It makes a difference in how I act. And I think that’s important.

6. Family is a choice you make

My dad and his brothers are great at keeping touch. All them used to move around a lot for work, and within six months of every move, each brother had gone to visit the new place. They might not have always gotten along, they aren’t each other’s best friends, but they like each other, and they stayed involved with each other lives. Purposefully. My cousins and I are very close, and I think this is a lot of learned behavior from our dads. In 2006 my cousin Chloe graduated from college, and on a whim a bunch of us drove up and down the east coast to be at her graduation. We took over her dorm and turned her grad party into a family reunion of sorts. It was great. We had a blast. Family can be a choice you make.

I could- and should – write more. There’s a never a good stopping point when trying to express everything a parent has taught you. But for now, I’ll think I’ll fire up some Billy Joel and give my dad a call.

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You know the point that Sarah Palin totally lost me? It was when she said “Oh, gosh, I never WANTED to be a governor, it just kind of happened for me. I was never that ambitious.” 

And with that, I was done. Just what I needed, a female talking head downplaying ambition, downplaying her accomplishments as luck and something that other people made possible for her. God forbid a woman with a national platform got up and said “Yeah, I always wanted to do important things, so I worked really hard, and check it out: I’m a governor, and now a Vice Presidential Candidate. I know, it’s pretty badass.” Because it is pretty badass. And imagine how great it would have been for a generation of both women and men to hear that, and to get the chance to nod along. Instead, we got “Oh, gosh, no, I would never admit to WANTING things.” Just like a good girl should.

I was thinking about this today as I read Hillary Clinton’s twitter bio.

Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD…

Well, actually, when I read Hillary Clinton’s twitter bio, I first thought was “I want to be as awesome as her when I grow up”, but then I heard it discussed and then dismissed as “Self-aggrandizing.”

“She thinks a lot of herself”, was said. 

Well. 

Of my two choices — “Aw shucks, thanks guys for letting me play” or “I play the game, fairly awesomely” — I’m going to go with the second. Because maybe it is self-aggrandizing, but you know what: she’s earned it. Every single thing in that bio is true, and she should be absolutely proud of all of it, up to and including the pantsuit situation.

Because, man. If Hillary R Clinton can’t be proud of what she has accomplished, if Hillary R Clinton can’t get up and brag about having been a US Senator, Secretary of State, accomplished author and legitimate glass ceiling cracker, I just have no idea how the rest of us will ever gain traction. If doing all the above isn’t enough to give license to brag, I guess what they say is true: women really haven’t come that far after all.

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So, to follow up: hey, I’m pregnant. Again! For real, this time. Or, rather, this time, it looks like I have every reason to believe I’ll be bringing home a baby sometime in Novemberish. 

So, in summation: baby coming, we’re happy, I’m feeling better, mental headcasery appears to be subsiding. All in all, good times over here in InnerTeub land.

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“20 minutes, Door to Door, No One Sings” was my one requirement for our wedding ceremony. In retrospect, this is a little too bad, because I do enjoy some good music (also too bad: I forgot to pick ANY music for the ceremony itself, prompting Mike’s ex wife to shuffle through her iPod frantically looking for an instrumental and plugging it in literally as my dad and I walked into the building) (Thanks Kristen!) (For those who are new here: yes, she was there. Her boyfriend’s band was our wedding band. It was lovely to have her and him involved, especially so they could be a part of Sammy being a part of our wedding. I married into a family, y’all.) (I over-explain this too much, always.) 

Anyway! 20 minutes, door to door, no one sings! That makes it sound like I didn’t CARE about the wedding ceremony, which is…maybe true, but also not accurate. I did care, and I loved our ceremony. My godfather was the officiant, the readings were meaningful to me, and I loved loved loved our vows. (Speaking of readings: DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO PICK READINGS FOR A SECOND WEDDING? Considering most wedding readings come down on the side of “one true love for every one person, forever and ever” and, well. That’s a little AWKWARD. There are VERY FEW sentimental wedding appropriate readings that go something like “well, people find each other when they need to, and isn’t that lucky, and in no way invalidates that love that was once shared by two people who had a child together but then decided to mutually go their separate ways”, ya know?

I have completely lost the plot of this entry, which was not intended to be about our wedding ceremony (recap: I dug it) or the wedding itself (recap: I also dug THAT). It’s that today is our anniversary, and I’ve been musing about our wedding.

***

This weekend we test drove a Tesla. It’s an all electric sports car, and one of the only showrooms is in the mall by our house, and Mike’s a car geek and a pilot and likes things that go vroooom (even though, ironically, because it’s electric, it does not go vrooom.) Not because we have any intention of ordering a Tesla (do I need to clarify that we’re not buying a $90,000 car? Internet: we are not buying a $90,000 car), but because it’s cool, it was there, and it’s nice to dream. And so for our anniversary, I got Mike a Telsa t-shirt, as just a little hat tip to him, and to us, and how much fun we have together future planning and dreaming and living our lives. 

***

Speaking of living our lives: 

Looks like we’ve done gone and fucked it up. Or made it more awesome. Possibly – probably – both. 

Littlest Teubner, coming at the end of the year. Later than we ever planned, but also entirely too soon. 

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A while back, there was a hashtag floating around twitter: #edgyheadlines. A few excerpts: 

• Kate Harding@KateHarding ICYMI: Are men fit to lead? Can men have it all? Are men too competitive with each other? Are men their own worst enemies?#edgyheadlines

• Rebecca Watson@rebeccawatson Kim Jong Un Threatens US; Are Men Just Too Emotional for Leadership? #edgyheadlines

• Alyson Miers@alysonmiers Kids Getting Fat Because Fathers Not Cooking Meals#edgyheadlines

• Rebecca Watson@rebeccawatson Lego Introduces Blue Bricks, so Boys Can Join in on the Fun#edgyheadlines

They’re funny right? I mean, it really is. I laughed till I choked when I read “Single Men: They’re buying homes and working at jobs. But are they happy?” Because, I mean, come on: it’s hilarious. I have absolutely read a variation on the “Single women buying homes BUT ARE THEY REALLY HAPPY?”. This is not out of left field.

And then, just today – like, five whole minutes ago – I read an article on the Forbes website titled: “The Breadwinner Complex: Are Women Apologizing for Earning More Than Their Husbands?”

That’s a real article that someone pitched, researched and wrote and was published on a reputable media site. I’m not really laughing anymore. Not just because the question had to be asked, but because apparently this is a thing. There’s an idea floating around that if you make more money than your husband, that’s odd and weird and maybe you should be a little bit humble about it.

Here’s the response women should have for being the main breadwinner: You’re welcome. That’s what I’d expect any man to say who was supporting his family: you’re welcome for contributing. It is my pleasure.

Edgy headlines indeed. 

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The problem with books is that when you’re (I’m) into a really good one, you don’t want to do anything else. I don’t want to watch TV or go to work or talk to my spouse, I just want to stay in that world and readreadread until I’ve devoured it. Frankly, it kind of ruins my life, a little bit, loving a good book. Everything goes on hold until I’m done. I once ran to a Borders after work to buy the last book in series and started reading it at STOPLIGHTS ON THE WAY HOME. You know that Kerouac quote that every high schooler way over-identifies with, the “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars”? That’s how I feel when I’m knee deep in a good story – my mind feels like it’s tripping over the words on a page, candles exploding across my brain, mad mad mad, incapable of reading quickly enough to satisfy.

Which is my lead in to say: dude, the last Sookie Stackhouse book is out.

Ok, LOOK. I didn’t say I burn burn burn for good books. Just a good story. And say what you want: the Stackhouse books? Are a great story.

It’s a funny thing about the series: these books are not good, except for how they are so, so good. The elements of ridiculous are so extreme (telepathy? Vampires organized by kings and queens? The clothing descriptions??) but the world Harris created feels almost ordinary. Commonplace.

I started reading them after watching the first season of True Blood (which is based on the books.) I loved that show and wanted more, immediately, so went and picked up the first book. And then the second. And then all of them. The TV show, in some ways, is better, but Sookie as a character in the books? Man, she is the tops. I’d say the first two books in the series are weak, the awesomeness really picks up in book three, and the party just rolls through books four and five, things get weird around book six, but the joy ride continues through till book 8ish. The last book just came out and I’m glad it’s the last one – it’s time to wrap this party up, all good things must come to an end and all that – but man, I wish I could back and relive the experience of reading these books for the first time. I was almost literally clapping with enjoyment while reading them, and I’m not even misusing the world “literally.”

If I had to pick the thing I loved best about these books, it would have to be the voice of the main character  Sookie. Her inner monologue is so dead-on and realistic that you can really pretty much skate through the fact that she’s a telepathic barmaid in a world where vampires and werewolves and fairies are real things. Book-Sookie (who far superior to TV Show- Sookie) reacts to situations exactly the way you would react, I mean, what would you think when being threatened by a vampire overload?

“I could torture you until you told me the truth, or until I believed you had been telling me the truth from the beginning.”

Oh, brother. I took a deep breath, blew it out, and tried to think of an appropriate prayer. God, don’t let me scream too loud seemed kind of weak and negative.

 Or her thoughts after responding to being asked what size clothing she wears:

What size dress do you wear, Sookie?

“An eight.’”

(Sometimes more like a ten. But then again, once in a blue moon, a six, okay?)

 No worries, Sook. It’s cool. We’ve all been there.

I’ll miss Sookie Stackhouse – the way she is written, she feels like a friend. Charlaine Harris does such an incredible job bring the world of Bon Temps alive and making it seem relatable, ordinary – no small act of magic considering the subject matter. What a wonderful treat, to have read these books. Cheers to you, my fellow fans. Enjoy the latest – and last – book in this series. I know I will.

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My friend informs me I haven’t been blogging enough. Which is fair, but every time I sit down to update this here page it starts looking something “grumble grumble work grumble grumble yes my carry-on bag DOES fit in the overhead grumble grumble weather” 

Fascinating stuff, I tell you.

In the absence actually news or interesting content, let’s revisit “InnerTeub’s Happy Memory of the Day” (take one here) with two random and completely unrelated memories:

—

A few years ago, I was riding my bike in DC, and decided to drop in on my aunt and uncle, who lived on the bike route (For those who are familiar with the area, I was riding from Cap Hill to Rock Creek Park, and the family in question lives just off Rock Creek.) I’m close with my aunt and uncle, but hadn’t actually seen them for a few months – life, you know – so it seemed like just as good a time as any to pop by and be all “hey man, how’s it going.”

Upon arriving at their house, I unclipped from my bike cleats, picked my bike up, clip-clopped up their front stairs, and rang the bell. Almost instantaneously, the front door swung open, and my uncle goes “Oh good, you’re here. Let’s go.”

He hustled me (and my bike) inside the house, handed me car keys and a carry-on bag, and then pushed me out the door to his car. Apparently he was running late for his train and needed a ride to Union Station, which I proceeded to give him. (After dropping him off, I drove back to his house, grabbed my bike, and cycled home.) This whole thing was HIGHLY WEIRD, especially considering he had NO IDEA I’d be stopping by that day, let alone in just enough time to chauffeur him to the train station. I inquired about this while we were driving, and we had the following conversation:

 “Uncle John, not that I’m not happy to be giving you a ride, but… what were you going to do if I [completely randomly] hadn’t shown up?”

 “Oh”, he said, “Things always seem to work out, one way or another”

And that, my friends, is the best example I can give you for what it is like to try to make plans with my family. Plans? Eh, no need. Things always seem to work out.

—

Once, in college, my professor responded to a student’s question with “You know, when I hear a question like that, I think to myself: “There’s someone who is getting a C- minus on the midterm”

To this day, that remains the best response to a stupid question I have ever heard.

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I’ve been thinking about downtime. 

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I ran my first half marathon in February 2006. It had been a goal for a while; I started running 2001-ish – slow, steady jogs around the reflecting pool in DC, a few blocks down from my apartment. I got sick in 2002, and then stepped up my running efforts, doing more and more as a way to both celebrate and punish my bum heart. In December 2005 I had heart surgery that was intended to be fully corrective, and I thought: ok. Ok. I’m ok.

A friend of mine told me about the Gasparilla half in February 2006 and suggested I join her; going down there with a crew of my people and a goal to bounce me back from heart surgery seemed like a great idea. In retrospect, a half marathon two months after heart surgery is stupid, but I was 25, sick of being sick, and two months felt like forever. I was ready to go. Heart surgery felt like a demarcation point in my life, the clear line between Before and After, and the Gasparilla Half Marathon was in the After, and I was going to Do It.

I still remember that winter training. Up before work, bundling up, hitting the National Mall in the dark, in the cold. I like running in the mornings, I like running in the winter. Good music, time in my head. It was always always dark and cold, but I would lie there in bed as my alarm was going off, and mentally bargain with myself: “I can sleep in now if I promise to run later. Self, I’m serious though: you have to run later. After work. AFTER WORK, YOU HAVE TO DO IT” but I know me and I never ran after work. There was always late meetings or late happy hours or anything, everything better to do after work, so: up. At ‘em. Shuffle shuffle through the mornings, the sun coming up as I was heading home.

I ran the race in 2 hours and 43 minutes. I had IT band pain from overuse/undertraining (you can run every single run of your scheduled training plan, but if you are only training for two months for a half marathon with no running base, you are undertrained). I walked a lot. It hurt. I was frustrated. But I finished and God I felt so good. I was so happy.

Finish line, Gasparilla Half Marathon, February 2006

My second half marathon was in the fall of 2006, as a part of the training cycle for the 2006 Marine Corps Marathon. I was two years away from my first Ironman race, a year and a half from my first ultra marathon, but I didn’t know that yet. What I knew was that the idea of marathoning had been something Other People could do, and now it was something *I* could do. Again, with the morning training. Most people do long runs on the weekends, but I was always traveling or drinking or doing something, so I did my long runs before work. 10, 12, 16 miles, all before throwing myself in a shower and limping to the office. (God, not being in my 30s was awesome.) My brother was living with me at the time and would hear me stumble through the living room on the way out the door at 5am: “How many miles are we running today?” he’d call out. “Just 10”, I’d say, and he’d call me a slacker as he went back to sleep.

The Quantico half marathon in the fall of 2006 was just an excuse to get in a long run as part of my marathon training plan. I had already run more than 13 miles by that point in the training cycle, so it wasn’t a goal race or even a race in my mind; I believe my goal that particular weekend was to get in at least 15 so I figured I’d head the hour down south to Quantico, run a few miles before race start and then pick up the race course and get in my long run.

I was using a run/walk plan for my marathon training; run 8 minutes, walk 2. (This was the heart doctor mandated deal I struck: I could run, I could run all I wanted, but I had to walk every 8 minutes to get my heart rate down.) I remember this because I was so strict about it; the minute my watch said “XX:X8” I was walking, which means in the first mile of a race, you are getting passed by everyone. And then I would run again when my two minutes were up and I’d pass them back. Rinse/repeat. There was a group of young marines – probably 18, 19 – and I remember them saying “That girl who walks keeps passing us.” I mean, whatever, but also, shut up, right? I just kept doing my thing and I was noticing that my thing was getting faster. Even with a two minute walk break I was clocking about 9 minute miles. This was mind blowing for me, someone who was quite used to shuffling along with 10 minute, 11 minute miles. I was feeling great, and the next time I caught that group of guys, I remember pushing past them and leaving them behind. Even with my walk breaks, I didn’t see them again.

The thing about this race that I really remember was it was the first time a race distance didn’t scare me. I knew I could run 13 miles. I was going to be able to finish, no matter what happened, so it wasn’t scary to try to go faster. With my first half, I had never run 13 miles. My longest run was ten miles, and the challenge of the race was that last three. At the Quantico half, the distance wasn’t the challenge. The speed was the challenge. That was new. At mile 12 I was cruising and someone called out to me “One mile left!” and I thought two things: “I don’t want to run one more mile” and “Just one more? Let’s go.”

I crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 4 minutes, almost exactly 40 minutes quicker than my first half marathon earlier that year.

There was no celebration, like there was at Gasparilla. I hadn’t done this race with a group of friends, I was just down there by myself. I finished the race, grabbed my bagel and water, sat down in the bleachers at the stadium where the finish line was, looked at my watch, and started to cry. To this day I can’t quite articulate why – not tears of joy, certainly not sadness. I was so, so happy, but I think, also, maybe relief? That I could pick a thing I want to do and actually do it well. I remember the end of that race just being a very quiet moment, sitting there on a fall morning, by myself, just so fucking proud.

That’s not the end of the story, of course. I did the 2006 Marine Corps marathon (slowly and painfully). I spent the summer of 2007 doing triathlons and then I paced a friend at the end of her 50 miler and she said “hey, next time, you should join us” and I thought “You know, I really should” and before I knew it I was 30 miles into my first ultra, and then more marathons and then omg why not an ironman and it really all just sort of steamrolled down the path.

My last ironman race was in the summer of 2010. I burned out, found crossfit, got excited, did that for a bit. Then last weekend I ran another half marathon. I got it in my head this fall, as I was recovering from surgery: I missed running long. Maybe it’s because long slow running feels like it goes hand in hand with recovery for me, maybe I have a screwy masochistic relationship with my body and feel like I need to punish for constantly letting me down on the health front and running long is a nice water torture way to punish oneself  (just spitballing here), but mostly I think I just wanted to feel that feeling again, that way I felt at the end of those two half marathons.

This past weekend’s half wasn’t actually a big deal, one way or another. I ran it in 2:14, slower than I wanted but certainly not as slow as it could have been. I got to that feeling, the one I get around mile 6 of every long run, where I feel like I can run forever and that’s all I want to do, and I love that feeling and it was great to be there again. A nice little spark, a reminder of a part of myself I like a lot, a part that’s been quiet for a bit, a part that I might be ready to let back in.

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I am traveling again which means I am spending entirely too much time in my own head, which means you get to listen to (read) a list of things that are annoying me:

• Airline and Hotel loyalty points programs. You guys, the extent to which I will go to board a plane via a dingy red carpet. It’s not pretty, I tell you what.
• See also: free bottles of water in hotel rooms. Ok, this is actually 50% bitching, 50% life hack: 1) If you are going to store corpses in the hotel water supply, then don’t make me pay $7 for a bottle of water, yeah? 2)Bring your own bottle of water. And yes I know the airport will screw you just as hard as the hotel w/r/t pricing, but for some reason that annoys me less, so I always have a bottle of water from the airport with me. Then go to the hotel fitness center. They ALWAYS have a filtered water machine in the fitness center. That is where you refill your water. Life hack: BOOM
• And on a different note: Isn’t it cool that science created a vaccine for cancer? Well, I mean, a vaccine for HPV, which CAUSES cancer, so it’s a little roundabout way of getting there, but I’ll take it, because, hey, end result: less cancer. Too bad that even though both men and women can get HPV only women can get cancer from it, though. If it protected again more than just GIRL cancer I bet health insurance companies would cover vaccines for EVERYONE, not just girls as they currently do. [insert side eye glare]
• Back to travel: don’t put your coats in the overhead bins. That’s where rolly bags go, and it’s limited space, and if that space runs out, people have to gate check their bags, and then there this whole “gah will I ever see my stuff again or am I going to have to go to tomorrow’s customer meeting in the yoga pants I’m currently wearing” angst along with “well if it was going to be checked I might as well not have gone through the rigmarole of small little toiletries and dragging this thing through the airport if I’m not even going to get the time and other benefits of keeping my bag with me” (SO MANY RULES)
• I get a little cranky towards humanity when I travel a lot. It’s really not you guys, it’s me, unless you’re walking really slowly in the flow of traffic, in which case it may in fact be you.
• This reminds me: my brother’s method of not getting annoyed when he travels, especially in the security line, is to just sloooooooow down. He just pretends he’s not in a hurry, and does some kind of jedi mind trick on his blood pressure to be all “it’s ok that the person in front of me is unpacking everything they own and putting them through the security thing one at a time, it’s ok that the entire line is shut down, la la la it doesn’t matter at all” and when I remember to do this, man, it makes a huge difference.
• I was unable to employ this method as my bag was getting gate checked and I could visibly see THREE COATS IN THE OVERHEAD where my bag could have gone. But that’s a failure of personality, not method. The method is good.
• Here’s the annoying thing about getting cranky about traveling too much: I love what I am traveling for. I love my job. This is what I want to be doing. I’d be annoyed if I wasn’t doing it.
• Minneapolis continues to have the best airport, forever and ever, amen. You should go there. It’s just such a pleasant place. MSP FTW!

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