Music, shameless self-promotion, Katy Perry, n'at.

The boys over at the awesome music blog Draw Us Lines, were looking for chicks to offer some female perspective to their line-up, and I ::blushes:: was one of the chicks they asked.  I guess because I like music and have opinions.

So, for my first piece, I wrote about Katy Perry.  Or more accurately how a hipster named Darwin Deez made me really start liking her song Teenage Dream.

You can read it here.

Also, next weekend Draw Us Lines is celebrating their first anniversary with a birthday party that is basically putting all 24 of my birthday parties to shame.  Meaning, it's going to be really fun, and you should buy a ticket.

The bet.

I do not have a good track record with bets.  In fact, I can't outright think of a time I've ever actually won a bet, which I suspect may have something to do with my disbelief in the theory of probability.  The point is however, that this doesn't stop me from participating when the offer of a bet comes up.  Oh god, that's the definition of insanity isn't it?

I have a lot of friends that are runners.  This is great.  It means I am consistently encouraged to get out of bed, leave the couch, stop working for an hour to meet someone to go for a run.  You also form a special bond with your running buddies.  It's nice.

After the Pittsburgh marathon, of which several of us ran the full, half, or a relay, we caught the racing bug, and began scheduling races through out the summer.  It was determined that the group would run the Race for Roch in Mount Washington in July.

It was all fun and games and witty email chains until Regina threw out the question "Wait, should we make this a bit of a...race?"

To which I, who can never turn down a dose of competition responded with "Oh, I don't know should a group of ambitious relatively type A people make a race a race? Heck yes, we should make this a race! We should make this a race with a cash prize!"

We've decided that rather than cash, the winner gets to assign karaoke songs to the losers while the losers buy the winner their drinks of choice.

This has inevitably lead to emails full of tough talk and threats to pick songs exclusively from Cats, make everyone sing the same Jimmy Buffet song, orders of expensive aged scotch, and the hill work we are all doing in preparation for July 30.

I don't know what I was thinking.  I am not a fast runner.  Especially not in Pittsburgh July heat, uphill, in the morning.  However, I'm hoping that my gut-wrenching fear of karaoke will cause an endorphin induced miracle that allows me to win.

We'll see.  In the meantime, I've got hill repeats to sprint.

The wknd!

5:05

Regina Anderson

just sent you a reminder i JUST got about the bbq

there will be a film crew there

so dress bbq cute

i had no doubts that you wouldn't

BUT

now it's official

oh!

what to wear what to wear!

okay

i'm peacing out

So now I have to figure out what "bbq cute" is, and wear that...

Luckily Redd Up Thread Up is tomorrow!  Yay clothing swapping!

Have a delicious weekend.

Hallucinations > Malaria...I guess

One of the common side effects of most malaria medications is weird dreams.  Sometimes anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations can occur.  On the other hand, without it, you know, you risk malaria.  And then they just give you the same meds at a much higher dosage.

I was just in Haiti, where it is now the rainy season, and full of mosquitos, and therefor we were all taking malaria medications.  I was the only one in the group on chloroquine, which is taken once a week for 6 weeks as opposed to every day for the week you're there.  I hadn't thrown-up, or experienced blurred vision, and my dreams are always vivid and weird, so I was under the smug impression that I was avoiding all the possible unpleasant side effects.  Until someone in my group told me that by week 4, I'd be swatting at things that weren't there.

On the plane back to Pittsburgh, as we were about to land, I noticed that the woman sitting in front of me had a dog in the bag under her seat.  The plane was dark, and the dog was poking his head through the top of the bag, so that was all I could see. He had also been silent the whole flight, so I was surprised that I was just now seeing him.  Or was I?  I started questioning myself, staring at the dog wondering, "Are you real?"  I kept looking away, then looking back to see if he was still there.  Eventually, his owner leaned over to pet him, and I relaxed, relieved that I wasn't hallucinating dogs on planes.

I mentioned this to my fellow threadheads as we got off the plane, and we all laughed about it.  10 minutes later in baggage claim, I saw the woman with her dog again.

"That was the dog,"I pointed out to Lee.
"What dog?" he immediately responded.
"Don't.  Don't event start with me." I said.

So far, still no side effects, however, I will probably blame any weird behavior on my part for the next 4 weeks on the chloroquine.