First off, if you haven’t entered my giveaway to win a free copy of Running of the Bride, you should!  You can have up to three chances to win, and each requires a new comment, just fyi.

Oh crap, that’s already one thing.  Is this the right blog meme?  I think I’ve used these things incorrectly in the past.  Quickly!  I’d better post a cat picture!

Okay, WHEW, got that out of the way.

Second thing:  Body image.  Who has body image problems?  I was invited by my (favorite) photographer Sarah Crowder to participate in a photo shoot yesterday for a magazine article about the upcoming Mo Cowbell Half Marathon.  I was happy to do it, and excited to participate.  But then I got there, and naturally the other girls were like six inches shorter and way skinnier, and I felt super awkward and uncomfortable.  In fact the guys, except one, were also shorter and skinnier.  I don’t know why I let that sort of thing bother me, but I did.  Plus I figured everybody else was a faster and better runner, so it wasn’t just body image, it was feeling inadequate as a runner.  Ugh.  I hate feeling like that.  And it was still fun, but I just felt out of my league.  Hopefully some of my shots turned out okay…I know that Sarah will have done a great job.  I guess I’m also really hoping to be in the magazine (that would be SO cool) but worried that the others were more photogenic and well…thinner.  Ugh.

I may not be America’s Next Top Model.

Third thing:  Music. When I’m driving, I often like to listen to NPR but lately I just can’t take it anymore (politics).  When that happens I switch to a CD (yeah, my car is old school with the CD’s…).  I usually listen to the same CD over and over for weeks.  I just moved on from a few weeks of Vadim Repim playing the Prokofiev Sonatas to a recording of David Oistrakh playing both Prokofiev Concertos.  But yesterday I was SO angry and impatient with everything, and then I was the same in the car this morning, and it occurred to me that the music I was listening to might be making me angry.  I switched to the Brahms Sonatas with Henryk Szeryng, and as the G Major Sonata started…those first few piano chords…I felt a huge sense of relief, and I physically got chills all over, started shaking a little, and started crying.  I stopped myself because I was in the parking lot at the gym and I didn’t want to go inside all teary and look like a lame loser.  (Alliteration, good for writing.)  But…it’s times like that that I remember why it is I do what I do, and how important music truly is to me.  Sometimes I choose music based on my mood, but other times music sets my mood.  Or maybe that tells you that I am an incredibly moody person.

Boulder, Colorado