I ran today. Not a crazily impressive distance or speed, but it was good for me. I was proud. And sweaty.

I climbed today. Again, not crazily impressive difficulty or anything, but I did better than last time and that was important to me.

Now I am tired, but feeling good about what I accomplished. Yay, physical activity!

I’ve always been very good about keeping my brain from turning to mush: getting new (purely intellectual) hobbies, learning new things, reading books, watching films, etc. But I haven’t been at all concerned with keeping the other physical aspects of me from turning to mush until fairly recently. It’s exciting and new… like The Love Boat theme song (RIP, Aaron Spelling - you gave us that, too).

In the “no pudding-brain” category, though, I have excitement brewing as well. My friend Sara gave me a guitar and I’m going to pick up where I left off in September and learn to play more than the two chords I still sort of remember. I have some books, I have a few friends who play (and will help me tune the guitar) and a spiffy new chord chart I printed off last night at the suggestion of my friend LJ, who proceeded to share chord progressions. I will figure them out and be able to appreciate them eventually, but I had to give a little “whoa” and mention that my brain doesn’t think in music - or at least not yet.

My history with music is spotty. I took piano lessons with my brother when I was younger, and the teacher was kind of a bastard who criticized my short fingers and inability to play scales properly. So that sucked. Then I played the flute in late elementary and middle school. The music teacher there was also an ass who told me that I shouldn’t be playing the flute since my fingers were too short to reach the keys at the end. So I joined the choir and that was fine - was in the madrigal group, sang a duet once or twice, was in the school musical, but nothing extraordinary. It kept me musically active, but without the crap.

However, those two summabitches gave me the biggest insecurity issue about my short fingers. My fingers are short (like the rest of me) but not unnaturally so; I certainly don’t have strange puppet fingers or anything. Standard size guitars have proved a bit rough for me to play between short fingers and bum wrist, so I’m really encouraged by the fact that the guitar I got from Sara is a bit smaller than a standard guitar (just not a baby version).

It’s getting late and I have been needing copious amounts of sleep lately. I don’t know what’s up. Maybe it’s the change in the weather - the warm 80+ degree days are not something I’m used to. Neither is the sun. And it was different in California… it was that much-lauded “dry heat.”

Here, in the mid-Atlantic, we have wet heat. And it’s certainly not as sexy as it sounds in other contexts.

Post title inspired by Bob Dylan. Kind of.

Tonight, I watched “I’m Not There” - the highly stylized biopic about Bob Dylan. I’m glad I watched it with a friend who is a Dylan fan (inasmuch as she feels you can call yourself a Dylan fan - what she’s got is a love/hate thing - but the fascination is there) and has knowledge about his life; I am not what you’d call a Dylan fan. I’m aware of him: I know some songs, I recognize his voice and will occasionally mock it, I recognize some of his mannerisms and such - but I knew nothing about his life.

I guess you can say that I still don’t really know anything about his life since it was all a bit surreal and removed from reality - very loosely based on his life.

I don’t think there was a point where he was a young black boy playing the guitar for some suburban housewives and talking about wanting to go to Hollywood.

But there was a point where he, like the young black boy version of himself, went to visit Woody Guthrie in an asylum. I had to keep asking my friend, “Was that something that actually happened?” and “And who is that character based on in real life?”

All in all, though, it was good. I enjoyed all 2.5 hours of it. The performances by Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg were impressive - especially Blanchett. Hence the Academy Award nomination, I guess.

The “chaos and watermelons” thing is from a scene where one of the iterations of Dylan (”Drew Quinn”, the one played by Blanchett) is giving an interview to a British music show host while they’re driving around in a limo. It’s just before Cate/Bob/Drew says, “Everyone knows I’m not a folk singer…” and then turns to the camera (audience) and slowly breaks into a teasing Cheshire-like smile. Oooh - breaking the fourth wall.

Anyway - it’s getting late. Today was a pretty demanding day at work, so watching a movie and eating Chinese take-out (delicious Jade Green Delight - I was craving veggies) with a friend was just what the doctor ordered. To add to the fun, I painted my nails an obnoxiously summer-inspired shade of pink and I’m ready for Friday, dammit.

I think some people might be watching “Lost” tonight; it’s some two-hour finale thingie. I’ll think about catching up online tomorrow night. For now, go go gadget sleep.

A meandering post, in list format… some things I want to do.

- Learn to tune a guitar (my friend has a guitar she’s offered to give me since she’s not touched it in something like 4 years… and it’s made for people with smaller hands and shorter fingers, so it would help solve the one problem I was having when I started learning this past fall… my fingers are short so I was having trouble playing certain chords because my fingers couldn’t reach the strings across frets).
- Learn to play a song on the tuned guitar.
- Learn to sew with a sewing machine and pattern, not just needle and thread.
- Sew a skirt for the summer.
- Study up on photography and become proficient using the manual features on my camera to take interesting and fetching photos.
- Participate in my company’s corporate walk in Central Park in June.
- Start learning another language (I know someone who can hook me up with Rosetta Stone software for basically any language - French and Japanese are the main contenders right now. Maybe I’ll go for both.)
- Do some market research/conduct an internal focus group at work (honestly, it would be a lot of fun to do with the product line I intend to center it around).
- Take some day trips to fun places either by myself or with friends.
- Go to more galleries and museums.
- Convert a friend (or family member) to a climbing buddy and maybe even get them to go for belay certification. Call me an evangelist.

I bought some cute rain boots today. My Saucony Jazz sneakers, while incredibly comfortable, are not meant for puddle jumping, walking through wet grass, or other such rain-related activities. So I got to work with wet feet and that sort of set the tone for the day; I was a little mopey and “meh.”

On my way back to pet-sitting land, I stopped at a shoe store called Jubilee (B’way btw. 76th and 77th Sts) and bought the same rain boots I was ogling on Saturday. They were on clearance, they are cute, and they only had one pair left in my size. And they aren’t black, which is quite a change.