In the Style of Old

I think that I am becoming a nag, and my boyfriend is slowly but surely noticing it. The bright side? I’m only a nag about one thing, so he can’t dump me. Yet.

The one thing? Try this on for size: “IP, we should sit down and decide what week in August we’re going to Utah.” “Hon? The tickets on this week are $33 cheaper than on this week, let’s carpe diem, damnit!” “Yo, dude, I need to submit my time off request now. N-O-W.” IP, I can just imagine since the bulk of these conversations have occured on the phone, just looks at his handset curiously while contemplating what he’d have to endure if he dared to hang up on me.

My antsy nature about this stems from the fact that, although my boss has more or less given me carte blanche (Latin and French, oh my!) to take off in August, I want to do it before more assignments come my company’s way. Of course, there’s no way I’m not going (it’s been more than a year since a real vacation, we’re going–we’ve earned it this past year), and there’s no way my boss will make me stay (he/she will insist I go), but I want to set it down in stone ASAP. WordNerd will be flying to Las Vegas on this day, will be traipsing about southwestern Utah on these days, and will fly back on this day. I need my hiking fix too. I need it bad, man. While I do love me some Rock Creek Park, there’s something magical about scaling 600 foot ascents (Colorado National Monument) and being told by Ranger Tim that I’m going to be cold (Mesa Verde National Park).

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I must correct myself. The shoes I will be retiring quite soon were not with me in San Francisco. These are the shoes that IP gave me (his giving me the shoes enabled me to take a copyediting class last fall–that seems so long ago). His letter telling me to buy the shoes made, if you’ll recall, me cry, it made my mom cry, and it made a work buddy cry. I could go and dig out the letter from my folder of memories, but I’ll just burst into blubbery tears. Unlike then, I’m much more able to go to IP’s apartment, throw myself into his arms sobbing, and he’ll be all uncomfortable trying to peel me off of him and trying in vain to shush. It’d be a good kind of crying, though. That’s what I told him about my potential marathon completion. I cried at San Francisco, I’d definitely cry in New York. Why am I only doing long distance runs in cities with two or more names?

Anyway, speaking of the marathon (and, coincidentally, the need for another pair of shoes), I have the biggest paranoia going right now. It’s a realistic one, too, but nothing’s happened yet to fulfill it. I’m absolutely frightened of twisting my ankle or breaking my foot. At work, I wear various pairs of high heels (high being no more then two inches), and my latest pair (bought when I didn’t have any black dress sandals to wear and I’d spent the morning in pink flip flops) are two inches high and I feel like a giantess. I’m terrified that I’m going to do something quite nasty to my little footsies, but I can’t. Stop. Wearing. Them. Not because I love the pair (though they are adorable), but because I somehow keep on wearing clothes that demand the black dress sandals. I’m being very careful, though, so that almost ensures I’ll do something. Every single time I get up from my desk and walk to another part of the building or across the street to get coffee or downstairs to buy lunch, I dread a twist, a crack, me on the floor screaming bloody murder. And that’s why I’ve started wearing those damn flip flops if I happen to go outside. I just don’t want to risk it. The majority of the day, I’m on my butt in front of a computer, but when it comes to walking the involves traffic signals, rude pedestrians, and waxed floors, give me the flats.

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For some reason, this past weekend I was reminded of Billy Joel’s River of Dreams CD, specifically “Blonde over Blue.” During my sophomore year of high school, I took an aerobics class with the hopes of losing weight. I didn’t lose weight, but damn if I don’t know how to slap together challenging workout routines. People said my routines were the toughest–call it talent, call it masochism–and thoroughly enjoyed them. I incorported regular old aerobic moves and folkloric dance moves from Mexico to produce a singular sensation of a workout! Seriously, though, my workouts kicked ass and it’s not odd for you to find me occasionally doing the “Blonde over Blue” routine instead of running. I demonstrated it to my boyfriend this weekend. He stared at me, half-amused, half-frightened as I jumped and hopped all over the place and bragged about my aerobics choreography.

Isn’t it hilarious that I just downloaded the album, am listening to the song and, from the back of the latest issue of Ladies’ Home Journal that I never ordered (damn you, Ebags.com), Christie Brinkely is grinning at me? The song is about her, prior to their split after the album came out. How funny.

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And there you are. A post in style of old (i.e., my varied, rambling posts of 2005).