A Week Before Racing Ironman

Another lesson I learned this year while watching “Batman” – never die until you are dead. Even if you are falling out an airplane ripped apart by this guy’s henchmen, never bet against your own ability to survive and triumph.

I started racing triathlons out of fear.

Months before I decided to train for my first race, I left a really beautiful engagement ring on a window sill because planning a wedding while crying in the ladies’ room every lunch hour wasn’t working for me. The way out of the tears was dragging my ass off the couch, making myself salmon and doing a little yoga. Time was told in hours, then days, between tears. I never wanted to feel that weak again.

So I found running shoes and a beginning triathlon group. The governing rule of triathlon was that it was there to help me find my joy.  Born out of fear, it ended up being the first thing I did that was governed completely by love. The return on my effort has been greater than anything I’ve imagined: I’ve met the most amazing friends. I’ve found a purer, more true version of me. My heart has become bigger as I find that the more time I spend around people I love, doing things I love, the patience, understanding, and fight for the sake of others is greater.

When I signed up for my first Ironman in 2010, I learned more than I thought possible. I learned how to push myself. I learned organization, discipline, and that no one gets to do anything as big as Ironman alone. I also had so many people declare that what I was doing was “impossible,” and then I would simply, smile, nod, and continue on my way.  It didn’t feel impossible while I was in the middle of doing it. The ability to trust my internal compass above all noise was tempered forever on race day. Find “north.” Gathering everything you need to get there. That, my readers, is how a goal is accomplished.

Between the time I signed up for my second Ironman, to be raced next Sunday, I changed my life. On the morning of September 12, 2011, I stood in line to sign up for the race, feet tired and voice hoarse from cheering the day before. I had a very safe and not very challenging job with a fair measure of prestige. I already had the badge of Ironman tattooed on my soul. I was content. Was it fair to ask to the universe for more? Could it possibly spare more hours of happiness for me?

Yes, oh, yes it can. If I’ve learned anything thing year it is to believe in making even bigger dreams come true.

If I made a mistake this year, it was thinking too small. I don’t really even need to race next Sunday. By accepting the challenging of signing up, I’ve grown more than I thought possible. Race sign-up in my hand, I started throwing pins on the map of career possibilities. I applied for jobs. I visited grad schools. A good pin stuck. I quit my job and started a joint MBA/Master’s of Design program. It is a better fit than I thought possible. Now, I had this day where I’m happily sketching and studying macro-economics, loving their intersections. I am exactly where I belong and predict a lifelong love affair with this vocation.

The best part, though, is that I have developed a new relationship with my fear. I’ve realized it is a wise emotion. It saved me from marrying the wrong man and likely on countless other occasions great and small. Through GMATs, applications, bad dates, good dates, Ragnar, and even in clearing out the cobwebby corners of my own soul, I’ve learned to patiently listen to fear, take its council, and proceed on my way — usually for the better. Fear isn’t something to muscle over or ignore, as it tends to make itself bigger. Learning to calmly love my own scary, teeth-gnashing hairy beast and ask it what it wants? Makes life a lot easier. It is kind of nice, knowing there’s this part of me that will keep me safe through risk and peril. Fear is working out best when it is patiently steered, rather than letting it drive.

This process of befriending fear? I made tons of mistakes, but have found there are all sorts of interesting and good things in the shadowy bits of life and soul unknown. It is way more rewarding to explore there, than resign to the pleasant fate already assigned.

I don’t know when I’ll cross the finish line next Sunday. I do know I really want to be on that race course, because I love it and everything I’ve found being long-course triathlete. Racing is feeling a little like going to church. I am there to pay my respect to all I’ve been given by doing my best. This under-trained, new graduate student’s best is trusting there is something in the dark bits of her soul that will make the lessons, the lunges, the love of this game all make a good race.

No matter what happens, I get to race knowing my life is a thousand times better and brighter than when I signed up for it a year ago. A good return on a challenge, I’d say. I look forward to a life full of them.

Gear Review: Arm Coolers

I now live in Texas, Chicago. The city has reduced me to wearing only my lightest sundresses, staying within a few feet of my apartment’s window unit and eating gelato for dinner. Heat is lovely, when I can lounge on a beach chair in the Bahamas, reading novels. During Ironman training? I’m dreaming of rainstorms and beautiful sixty-degree mornings. The piece of gear that made the heat wave bearable: arm coolers.  Along with sunscreen, a good bottle, and a visor, they are now a key piece of my summer training gear.

I’ve reviewed arm warmers, which have many variations on the cozy black tube. Arm coolers? There seem to be few variations. But they kept me cool and less sunburned. I also have extra appreciation for all Chicagoans on my running routes who left their sprinklers running over the sidewalks and reactivating my arm coolers by wetting them — which is how this magic tech fabric works.

Zoot Icefil Arm Coolers – made with the same technology as gum!

1. Zoot Sports Icefil Arm Coolers –  These arm coolers got me through a 92 degree run at 85% humidity. I like this fabric because it absorbs water almost instantly and it is really easy to stuff ice down the sleeves at have it stay in place.  As a reward for looking up the name of the technology in these, “Xylitol,” I found out these work with mouthwash and gum technology. The same thing that gives that icy blast to winterfresh gum cools your arms.

2. DeSoto Sport Cool Wings. What is better than arm coolers? Arm and back coolers! For any of us who spend significant time with our backs

DeSoto’s version saves our arms and backs from sunburn. Excellent for long training rides.

facing the sun in aero position, this sort of coverage matters to our (usually) sunburned shoulders. I trust San Diego-based Emilio DeSoto with all things hot weather. When deciding on gear for the 90-degree runs, my favorite (and, sadly, discontinued) running shorts, are the go-to pair. Three pairs have weathered four summers of triathlon training. I would expect the arm coolers, like all the DeSoto gear I own, to last just as long.

3. Sugoi Arm Coolers.   I learned about the magic of arm coolers while

Sugoi arm coolers work beautifully and cost $20/pair. Bargain!

this northerner was running in a Ragnar Relay from Miami to Key West in January. It is tougher than one would think, switching from fleece-lined tights to shorts and singlets — I wasn’t heat-acclimated and my body hadn’t remembered that nifty sweating thing. These made warm course water feel like ice water in the blazing sun. They are also the cheapest pair in this list.

Pearl Izumi’s sun sleeves are longer than the rest, and come in both white and black — just in case you are missing your winter arm warmers.

4. Pearl Izumi Sun Sleeve.   These are an all-around good pair of arm coolers. Nothing special, but nothing’s wrong with them either. I do like that they are longer than the other pairs, covering more arm — and are especially good for long-armed athletes like me.

Architecture: Gateway Drug to Cycling

Last night I settled into bed with an old copy of Michael Camille’s Gothic Art: Glorious Visions. I had just watched the last stage

Cathedrals. Cycing. I’ve found god, fell a little bit more deeply in love with the world, and found spurs and trails of my own soul in both.

of the Tour de France, listening to commentator Paul Sherwen‘s descriptions of chateaus and cathedrals mellifluously punctuated with the state of the peloton.

If someone asks me why I am a triathlete, I tell them it was “because I wanted to do it.” If someone wants to know what lured me to my first road bike, it was Paul Sherwen’s architecture lessons. I was an undergraduate art history major — with a British medievalist adviser who wooed the ribs and vaults of 13th century stones around the hearts of his young student students. San Martin de Canigou. Chartres. Carcasonne. Reliquary.  Out of school and trying to find my way, I found this architectural poetry again while watching the Tour de France alongside new beautiful words:  Maillot Jaune. Breakaway.  Col de Galibier. Alpe d’Huez. Tourmalet. Champs Elysee.

Architecture was my gateway drug into cycling.

I wondered if you looked inside the ribcages of all those skinny, strong men if I’d find cathedral-resembling blueprints. I wanted more in the world of the large, the playing fields of space and time, and god, and nature, and self. Cathedrals were all about believing in god, in believing in strength. A bunch of peasants all doing something big. Mortals chasing greatness.  I’ve found god, fell a little bit more deeply in love with the world, and found spurs and trails of my own soul in both.

Craft. Patience. Time. I think of the Tour riders suffering up a climb wonder if it is any easier, knowing it would only be for an infinite little dot of existence, compared to the 14th century cathedral at the top and getting to know if is possible on this planet, for your work, your pain, your great effort, to last centuries beyond your last breath.

 

Yours? Mine? Ours? Ours!: Nine Reasons to Live Together

“Ugh. . .B? Your last blog post made it sound like you never want to live with anybody ever.”

Proof that BtotheS does believe in love and romance, here’s a picture from the feng shui’d love corner of my apartment. Feng shui suggests finding things your future beloved would like and arranging them there. So, Mr. Love, I don’t know much about you, but I think you like Mid Century Modern silver dolphin bottle openers, and quality literature.

Not quite true. But while I am currently single, I ought to enjoy it, right? Someday, some charming man, who has been dreaming about a fantastic designer lady who will search the globe for the perfect toaster way wander into my life. Since I’ve feng shui’d the love corner of my apartment, I have high hopes: The universe is on the look-out.

Things I love about The Living Together.

1. It is really awesome to sleep with someone. I’m not just talking about sex, which is ridiculously wonderful, especially when it is with someone I love and someone with good bedroom skills and spirit. But I adore brushing my teeth in the company of someone else’s buzzing Sonicare and then crawling into bed together and sleeping.  Even when it is a hundred degrees outside and all you want to touch is the other person’s toe with your own. Ahh. I sleep so soundly in another’s company. Maybe because I have a party in defending the house from burglars. Maybe another person’s heartbeat drowns out the sound of everything less important. I can find dinner partners, I can find sexual partners, I can have partners in almost all hobbies, but I don’t have a “can we just pretend we’ve been dating for millions years and have become part of each other’s habits” sleepover party friend for the days I really miss this part. I don’t think anybody does.

2. It is a challenge to be the party all be yourself. Living alone, things are funny and dancing in the kitchen happens, but things like that are so much better when someone else is around to be the amplifier. Funny movies become belly laughs and teary-eyed rolling on the floor with company. Dancing in the kitchen becomes way more sexy and hilarious in another person’s arm than even my best solo Beyonce shows.

3. It is nice to know, without a doubt, who to make your emergency contact. One of the saddest stories of my life was going out on a bike ride after a bad break-up with Mr. Former Emergency Contact’s name crossed out a Sharpie on my RoadID. I have people who would totally come to my rescue, but it is a little multiple choice right now. That person that worries if I’m half an hour late for dinner? Or wants to know my bike route before I leave just in case I have to be rescued if I dent a rim? I recall being slightly annoyed by overprotective Emergency Contacts in the past, but no more. Go ahead. GPS track me, you lovely creature.

4. Running a household is a huge job. And it can be a huge, beautiful, rewarding job. While self-reliance is a very good thing to have learned, I wouldn’t mind running a house with someone willing to divide and conquer all the chores and tasks according to preference and talent and then rock/paper/scissoring for everything else. My mad toaster-finding skills. Maybe your negotiating the cable bill? We’d rule. And I’d find your negotiating skills sexy and probably want to devour you with kisses.

5. Date night rules. Even when date night involves enjoying my beloved’s company while folding socks. By candlelight. With Ella Fitzgerald. And maybe sock puppet pirates. Except we’d have to switch to Gilbert and Sullivan and do sock puppet “Penzance.”

6. I’ve never really learned to cook for one. This lady learned to cook for six and has never quite broken the habit. I don’t know why, exactly, but I love cooking for someone.

7. The happiest fantasy I have right now is turning my key in the door after a long day and finding someone on the other side of the door, happy to see me.

8. Getting amazing access to the wardrobe of another’s joy. What’s better than the stuff that makes me happy? Being around someone with lots of stuff that makes them happy and getting to share in it — exploring new music, finding out why someone likes maps, and supporting whatever makes them shine and be happy? That may be the best. Ring those cowbells loudly! Ring Ring. Ring!

9. More books in a house is always a good thing. I may also add more bikes is also a good thing. More mess and diversity and tangling and ideas and spirit, too.

Yours, Mine, Ours? Mine?: Nine Reasons to Live Alone

A few days ago, I was enjoying a drink with friends and the subject of living alone versus living together flowed into

BtotheS understands researching all the throw pillows in existence, determining they are all inferior and then making this one with beautiful Thomas Paul fabric, gorgeous red piping, pin tucks, and a tie closure recycled out of a favorite old cashmere sweater is not everyone’s idea of a fun Friday night. But isn’t it fantastic?

conversation. Are wired to prefer one, or the other? I once dated someone who proposed we could live happily ever after someday — in houses at the opposite end of a block. At the time, I thought this was the stupidest, most insulting idea ever. A decade of dating experience later, I have a finer appreciation of his dream. My current thought? I’ve shared in the past, which was a failed, yet educational experience.  I live alone now, and actually put effort into setting up housekeeping the way I like it. Now, I think I’d be ready to share again.

Is cohabitation like the tide? Do we have seasons for it? Here’s the list. The real, unapologetic list of why I love living alone. Next post I’ll tackle the Together.

Arguments for the Alone:

1. My house gets to be my art project. I’m a designer and I love space and architecture. I can probably tell more about someone from the things they’ve chosen for their space than hour’s worth of conversation. My space is important. I love that my apartment feels like a wonderful, restful cottage in the middle of big, urban Chicago. I like my creaky, full-sized art nouveau bed with its crisp, pink sheets. I like when the dining room is full-on workroom, with project pieces buzzing about. Partners tend to have opinions about space. And their own things. Sometimes, there are good things, like copper-core All-Clad and stacks of beautiful novels. Sometimes, unsightly, large televisions, and furniture with poor proportion.

2. My house can have flexible purposes. Right now, during Ironman training, that means goggles can live on the bathroom sink and the hall table can be the gear table and this doesn’t make anybody sad.

3. Quiet. I have endless hours of quiet. Waldenesque quiet. Decadent baths with a glass of whiskey and Billie Holiday quiet. Soul restoring.

4. Active relaxation. Do you know how fun and relaxing it is to rip apart and reupholster your wing chairs? Or learn the shortcut keys on your Garmin gps watch? I’ve learned about my proclivity toward active projects for relaxation. I watch way more television in relationships than I ever do on my own. Relaxing project making throw pillows is entertaining. And I get a pillow.

5. I like buying myself flowers. I used to not do things like buy myself flowers. That was for dating. There’s something nice about saying “hey, I like flowers,” buying myself a really pretty vase, and ponying up ten dollars at the grocery store for a dozen lavender roses.  I also take myself to see obscure, foreign films. I get the thing that makes me happy. I’ve learned I’m not entitled to flowers, as outlined in section 806A of the Manual of What Should and Ought Happen While Dating. When flowers or anything else lovely does appear from a beau? It really is just wonderful. All by itself wonderful.

6. I get to work in furies. Creative bursts happen and I like to get to follow them. Is is invigorating, to be all muses and fire and just breathe the thing and not worry about routines or sleep schedules. I also get to be fallow, too, without anyone thinking I’m depressed if I’m not out the door for six a.m swim practice two weeks after finishing a big race.  I get to follow natural, creative rhythms. I like that I’ve learned to pay attention to them.

7. The joy of self-reliance. While I was removing a bicycle cassette recently, my visiting nephew asked why I was using “daddy’s tools.” Ugh. Perhaps not my natural forte or gender-specific inclination, I have learned to hang pictures, install air-conditioners, carry heavy furniture up stairs, adjust derailleurs, troubleshoot computers, fix toilets, and all sorts of other activities that members of the male gender tend to favor — or feel obliged to favor. Having tools is fun. It is really amazing how many problems can be solved with brute force. “Here, let me do that for you,” sounds like such a lovely, helpful sentence, but both genders are guilty of crippling self-reliance with it.  P.S. Men, I promise to let you buy your mother’s birthday presents, plan birthday parties, cook dinner, and clean toilets without uttering that sentence. Help, if necessary? Of course. But there’s joy in all of these things. Even cleaning the toilet (sparkling bathrooms rule).

8. Know thyself. There’s a scene in “Runaway Bride” where Julia Roberts has to determine what type of eggs she likes. It was so easy to explore, to even date men like they were classes, outgrowing them when their semesters of knowledge were over.  Spirit and intellectual curiosity can make lots of things fascinating: It takes time and a pretty solid ear to your own heart to understand what (and who) you love.  Over-medium, with toast for sopping up the yolk.

9. There’s less negotiation. The thing about having my particular Myers-Briggs letters, is that lots of decisions gut-based. And they are usually very good decisions — I just don’t know why right away. It is a challenge to negotiate one’s position when all I really know is that my ear is buzzing and that means it is good.  I’ve learned to construct an argument, but really prefer my Tonto “ear to the ground” methodology navigating the planet.  For example, I decided to be a conscientious objector of Christmas last year. Was it a good idea? Yes. I thought is was a good idea because I was training for a race and didn’t have time for a holiday that required a lot of work. I had a lot of fun. I liked observing the beauty of the ritual and only did the parts I like. It cured my long-standing Scrooge heart. Convincing someone to be a co-conspirator in such creative acts? Ugh. Challenging.

Future partner in cohabitation? You are moving in with a creative. We’ll have an awesome toaster, probably imported from Germany, and it will probably take six months to find it. A price worth paying for decades of toasting joy, I say.

Gear Review: Skratch Labs Drink Mix

This bag of nutrition actually tastes like raspberries. I am actually wearing my Podium Girl T-shirt right now for Allen Lim, for being the best Pro Cycling Tour boyfriend ever and coming up with genius ways to help athletes with science.

The Tour de France has begun and most of us cycling ladies have chosen our  pro tour boyfriends – the paramours from afar, who ride with our favor. There are so many talented choices. The new star  Heinrich.  The seasoned and classy George Hincapie. The  entire FD Jeux squad.  Long in the running –   I choose Allen Lim this year, who regularly uses his powers of nerd scientist to make cyclists faster. Hot. Plus who else could convince Lance Armstrong to stick bits of yarn to his helmet to test his bicycle’s aero position?  This year, I learned boyfriend can cook, too, — and he’s doing it for all of us, through pop-up airstream trailers, an excellent cookbook, and the best drink mix I’ve ever had.

As an endurance athlete, I’ve consumed a lot of sports drink.  Like, I know I comfortably spend more on it than, beer, ice cream, and cheese combined. As a rule, I refer to most sports drinks by their color or name: blue, red, recovery mix, HEED.  In hundreds of hours of road testing the stomach,  I’ve learned anything with high fructose corn syrup, like Gatorade, equal poison that causes gut rot.  The first Ragnar 200-mile relay I run destroyed my ability to drink the sugary “red” permanently.  Infinit and HEED drink mixes are tolerable (HEED is excellent on hot days — lemon lime tastes oddly good warm), but I’ve made a practice of marking my water bottles to make sure I drank enough of it — too much would never be a problem. Calories are calories and fuel is fuel, right?

I thought that until I drank my first glass of Skratch Labs drink mix. Even though this sounds disgusting, Allen Lim figured out the best thing to rehydrate athletes was sweat. So he made some in the lab. It tasted awful, so he added real fruit to it.  This is the first sports drink I’ve ever wanted to drink — it feels good, like eating a big pile of garlicky braised kale fells good. No wonder so many pro cyclists sneak this into their bottles:  Our bodies know when we are consuming good fuel. We’d never eat greasy cheeseburgers mid-race. Why do we keep drinking sugary drinks that cause stomach aches?  

Here’s the flavor report. I definitely don’t refer to these by color or name — just flavor, because they all taste “real.”

• Raspberries: So delicious sometimes I want it for dessert.
• Lemons & Limes: Pleasant, like a very, very mild San Pellegrino limonata.
• Pineapples: Tastes like pineapple. I’m thinking this one gets cold and mixed in the blender with other delicious things.
• Orange: Not offensive. Not my favorite. Maybe it just smells a bit too much like Pedro’s Orange degreaser, and I can’t have two liquids of opposite purpose in my cycling world have the same smell?

The real beauty of the drink mix is pairing it the philosophy and recipes found in Lim and Chef Biju Thomas’ The Feed Zone Cookbook. I am a foodie. I can tell you who the hot chefs in  Chicago are right now and how bacon and meat are out as the popular gourmet comfort foods in favor of house-made bread programs. I’ve had many fine meals, and can even serve a respectable feast from my own kitchen, having sharpened my knife in the United States of arugula.  The art of food and challenging the daily palate is a lovely passion.  This cookbook taught me how to eat for health.  Beet juice with a little ginger and apple feel amazingly restorative after a race.  Mid-ride sweet potato pancakes with jam feel and taste so much better than a Clif Bar. And I didn’t die! My legs actually went faster after eating them! For the first time as an adult, I made meatballs in marinara sauce. Before, I would have dismissed them as “mom food,” belonging in a long-ago era, with lasagna night and Hamburger Helper.  Maybe mom — and Allen — are right. This beautiful, simple food has been restoring my stomach.

How does Skratch Labs/Feed Zone philosophy stand up in actual training?   The best test I did was a brick 5-mile run/1-hour trainer ride/5 mile run/45-minute trainer ride.  As a triathlete, who usually runs last, I didn’t realize running first causes serious starvation and was eating leftover pancakes while riding on the trainer.  Who knew sweet potato pancakes would be genius training food? No upset stomach, and I was a very happy athlete at the end of this workout. I almost went out for another round of running.

Then, I took it to a half ironman. This worked rather well. I made the Feed Zone cookbook bread cakes with Farmer’s market challah and delicious bacon from the infamous local Pork Lady and lots of individual Skratch Labs sticks. Bread cakes? Genius. They were like eating little french toasts while riding. Gentle, but real food.  Plus, it was fun to hear my fellow athletes guess what I was eating, as I had a bread cake between my teeth while riding in the aero position. Sticks were a little awkward to mix while riding,  so I think I need to rethink my setup a bit.  My clever sister figured out opening them and then dropping the entire thing into the bottle worked perfectly.  My stomach has never felt better during a race and I didn’t have any of the strange moments where my concentration dropped — something I usually remedy with a caffeinated gel.  I do, however, need to master the (look away non-triathletes.  Look away.) important skill of peeing on the bike as part of good nutrition also involved being well-hydrated. Another good sign!

I think my pro tour boyfriend may take me all the way through Ironman training.  I’m thinking I’ll be the lady eating sweet potato pancakes, rice cakes on the ride and little potatoes on the run.  If only Allen Lim and Chef Biju and their airstream trailer were to appear on the Madison course to feed us all in September! I am seriously wearing my Podium Girl shirt right now for you, Allen Lim.

Experidating

My favorite cartoon involves the precocious Little Lulu going to a posh 1930s department store to exchange her doll for a better birthday gift. She has a grand time

How cartoons prepared me for dating life: Little Lulu returns yet another option to the store manager before playing with all sorts of fun an interesting options. To each, she says, “It is not what I want, Mister.” I think the modern version of that line is “I’ll call you sometime.”

trying out ice skates on an ice-cube pond and skiing down mountains of pillows, returning each item to the department store clerk, saying, very politely,  “It’s not what I want, mister.”

My dating life has been like Little Lulu’s trip to the department store.  I’ve been on dates with triathletes, designers, architects, the cufflinked, the flannel-shirted, the foodies, the smarties, the clean-cut, the tattooed, the bad boys and the good.  Online dating has proven to be the Macy’s of options, and I’ve had a great time chatting over drinks,  learning to be brave about kissing on the good ones and have even enjoyed the bad ones, watching dates break over things like, oh,  me having a faster running pace than Mr. Date.  I’ve also learned my own tells of boredom. The best? When I know there’s going to be no second date, I tell a whopper of a fish tale, like seeing how much of the plot of “Little House on the Prairie” I can incorporate into my childhood narrative. (Much more than I thought.)

It is not what I want, mister.

Holy fuck, it would be really nice to be able to crawl in bed and sleep with another person every night. And plan fantastic adventures to faraway lands and have debates over which farm share subscription is best.  It would be lovely, after some very long day, to turn my key in the door and hear someone on the other side, happy to see me.  It would be fun to plan birthday parties. And “you did this awesome thing” parties. Maybe there could be slow-dancing to Etta James in the kitchen while making dinner.  Maybe there’s somebody with qualities that will drive me absolutely crazy, like Morticia speaking French to Gomez.

Oh, online dating. You have made “experidating” so easy.  So after trying on many different dates, realizing that anyone who resembles William Jefferson Clinton (wickedly smart, powerful for the sake of good, kind, adores Hillary, a little Southern) is automatically sexy. Perhaps, just because I want something doesn’t mean I can pick it out of an online catalog of men. Scrolling through profiles,  I wonder how people could possibly recognize their future beloveds, without the sparkle of life and future in their eyes?

Who knows? Maybe online dating could work.  It has for may people I know.  The 11th century version turned into one of the greatest loves of all time : Abelard and Heloise. Abelard, a renowned philosopher, who had studied everything else that was interesting to him, decided it was high time his explored that field of love. He arranged to tutor a friend’s niece. Love, it seemed, was beyond anything academic. What started as a very simple educational experiment, and picking an object of love that was convenient, became a long tale involving angry uncles, thugs, castration, pouting in monasteries (him), pouting in nunneries (her), and then figuring out the only way they could be together was in heaven, so they had best bet at that was to love God.  Our pragmatic attempts to find love could possibly be an epic — hopefully with fewer castrations and monasteries, in this 21st century era where having one’s own band of thugs is frowned upon.

Where to put the energy? Into the world.  I’m in love with Chicago and one of my favorite beaus, Mr. Ironman, who, along Boyfriend Thesis from grad school,  were two of the most intellectually demanding loves a girl could want. Thesis liked to stay up late, listening to BBC radio and then fall asleep cuddling with the laptop. Ironman likes watching the sunrise with french press full of coffee and then doing glorious acts of exercise before breakfast. Good company.  Plus, it is just kind of fun to bounce and exist and have fun and have faith love will appear when he is supposed to and maybe I should appreciate my single-lady status for its temporary state.

I’ve also feng shuied the hell out of my apartment’s love corner.  It can’t hurt.