I'm Trying

I am trying ever so hard to come up with something worth blogging about. As I reported yesterday, my brain has taken a leave of absence. I do so hope it returns shortly. Or not. Being a zombie isn’t all that bad. It’s a lot less stressful that regular life.

Ahhh regular life. I am trying so hard to remember what that is. It’s slow goin’ in that department. So far the television has provided some insight for me. I’ve reconnected with my TV shows, and that is a start. I’ve also reconnected with sushi, which has gone a long way in making me feel like part of my own life once again.

I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to be DOING. I work from home. So I get up and walk down the hall and I do the work that clients require. And it’s not like there isn’t work to be done. There is. And I’m doing it. But see, the thing is, for the past few months I’ve been doing all that work PLUS planning a cross-country trip/book tour/New Orleans volunteer effort. So I’m left with a little bit of a hole where I used to put A WHOLE LOT OF CRAP.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to put in that space formally filled by a whole lot of crap. There are plenty of options. But I feel like I should just breathe for a minute and not jump immediately back into the craziness. But breathing takes a lot of energy and restraint and I’m not so good at being still, as it turns out. I’m very good at being stir crazy though, which is good to know.

My Blackberry broke the other day. I think it’s a sign. Well, I guess it could be a sign that you shouldn’t drop Blackberry’s in the toilet – BUT! I like to instead think of it as a sign that I don’t need a Blackberry anymore. That there is no reason for me to connected to everyone every single second of the day. And also, maybe that I shouldn’t keep my phone in my back pocket...

In book news, there is a little blurb about me in Runner’s World this month:



Do you understand how completely ridiculous it is that there is anything, blurb or otherwise, about ME in Runner’s Friggin World? I mean really. This could be why I feel so out of sorts, there is something off in the world when I’m in Runner’s World magazine. Of course things have been off for awhile, as I was in Women’s Health magazine last month:

You notice that I was also the cover model for both magazines. Ha! I think it would be funny if I was the cover model for these magazines, standing next to their cover models. That would be comedy.

Peeking Out

Hello all.

It has been quite some time since I’ve written. My bad.

I got home from my 10 week book tour/New Orleans trip. Since that time I have been doing a lot of bonding with my couch and TV. I’m actually sore today from laying down for so many hours. Sore. That is fantastic.

I don’t really know what to do with myself entirely.

Since December, and probably even before that, I’ve been planning or doing this book tour thing. At the same time I’ve been doing my real job as well, as mortgages are fun things to pay sometimes. I hear. So now I’m done with the planning and the trip. And all that is left is my real work.

There are a lot of hours in the day.

When you don’t have any morning shows to do, or book events to go to, or random groups of people to talk to, or 500 miles to drive, or 25 people to organize in New Orleans, or 25 meals to eat in New Orleans, or ulcers to get.

I’m forcing myself to take a moment to breathe a little, to be okay with the calm for a second at least. My house is quiet. It hasn’t been quiet near me for months. It’s a weird sound to get used to.

There are still a lot more things on the List of Things to Do. So I will not be calm for long. But I’m trying, I really am. I’m trying to process the last 10 weeks. Trying to get some perspective on it now that I’m done. It already feels like something I did once. Not something I did last week.

Here was the last promo that was put together. It’s a lot like the first one, but with a little more added on. Watch till the end, there a little extra after the pr info.

Some Pictures

Stuff

The REI things are going surprisingly well. Fun fact: I can BS for really any length of time, as it turns out. Well, I don’t really think of it as BS-ing, I just think of it as thinking on my feet. I’ve just gone in there the past couple of nights, taken a seat and started talking about marathon training. I mean really. I wrote 200 friggin pages about it, the least I can do it rambling on about it for an hour or so. The only problem seems to be that I don’t have much of a set outline of what I’m going to say, so tonight I kept hesitating on things, because I didn’t know if I had already said those things tonight, or was that last night? Geez, this is probably why people write things down and formulate thoughts before they give seminars on running. Maybe I’ll formulate thoughts on the next book tour. Or maybe I’ll formulate thoughts before the book tour and as a result will decide not to actually go on a book tour.

Lot’s of stuff has happened between blogs, and since I’m not blogging as often as usual I feel like some stuff is going unreported here in the blogworld. For that I am ever so sorry. For instance, it’s April something or other now and we still don’t have an updated picture of my mom’s ceramic dog. Things are falling apart here. You know, one of my friends suggested that I make a myspace page for the dog. I think I just might. His pictures are much better than half of the people on myspace. And he’s wearing more clothes in his pictures. (The dog, not my friend)

Last night on my way back from Seminar de Dawn I had to stop at YET ANOTHER TOLL BOOTH. Seriously. I am beginning to harbor a resentment towards tollbooths that is bordering on homicidal. Last night I came very close to hopping that border. It’s late at night. I have no cash. I see a sign saying there is a tollbooth coming up. There is no sign for an exit where I might be able to go get money. I get to the tollbooth. I have no money I say, can you send me a bill or something? The man says that the bill will be $29 if I can’t pay. This is when I started taking very big steps towards the border. I said maybe I had the $4 (and by the way - $4 for a FRIGGIN’ TOLL?!!!! Please someone do the math on how much @##%^&#$!@#$!#$ money these tollbooths are bringing in. Perhaps maybe we could set up a tollbooth to help fund things like education and health care for the poor, instead of just potholes.) in change, could I just pull to the side so the other people could go while I counted my change? He said no, the people would have to wait. I did not have $4 in change, so he took down my license number and will be sending me a bill that charges me over 900% interest because I am one of the millions of people in this country who operate almost exclusively on plastic, not cash. Do you think I could have sued the tollbooth company if I was attacked and mugged while going to get cash in the middle of the night in order to pay their ridiculous toll? Ooooooooooohhhhhh, I am not a happy driver. I will be sending this ticket back with a very strongly worded letter and a $5 bill. I am willing to pay 25% interest. That to me seems fair. If you can consider paying to driving a FREEway fair to begin with.

In other news I made a short video of two videos from Southern California. The first is a little sushi place in San Diego. It’s got flat screens all over the place, playing the most random stuff. The second was a huge bomb-looking fire in Hollywood. Big stuff, captured on film for you...

Things

It has been ever so long since I’ve written. My bad. Turns out the whole sick/traveling/book crap/still doing real work stuff combines to leave very little time for things like real thoughts and/or blogging. I am ever so sorry that you have not had up-to-the-minute blogs from Camp Dawn. I’ll do my best to keep that from happening again. We’ll see how it goes.

I am once again back home. And I am once again very happy about that. Let’s not get into the scheduling genius that keeps leading me back home, shall we? I fear it may lead to discussions of other very intelligent people and things that have marked this little tour of mine. Instead lets focus on some other things.

One thing is that my Blackberry just randomly decided to change times on Sunday morning, springing forward and all that. My modern, technologically advance little Blackberry. Didn’t get the memo that we already sprung forward a few weeks ago. This left me up an hour early on Sunday. An hour earlier than the ridiculous 5 a.m. time I was supposed to be up for a 5k thing I was going to.

I’m running around my cousin’s house getting ready, when she looks up from her bed and says, “What time are we supposed to leave?” I say, “Now!” She says, “It’s 4:30.". I say, “No, it’s 5:30." She says, “No my clock says it’s 4:30.” Me, “Mine says it’s 5:30." Her, “Your clock is high.” Me, “Maybe your clock is high.” Her “gets out of bed and goes to find tie-breaking clock in the living room, points to it” “That is the clock from the cable company, it’s right, yours is high, I’m going back to bed.”

Funny thing is, at 4 or 5 a.m. it is just basically “early as hell” a.m. - so that one hour didn’t make a lot of difference.

Last night I flew home and got home at about midnight-ish. I’d been up (minus a nap) since about 4. But when I saw my TV is was hit with my 8th wind. I was up till 5 catching up on my shows. Man do I love TV.

Another thing: Tomorrow. And then Wednesday and Thursday as well. Could be very interesting. I am to speak at three REI’s. Do they have REI’s everywhere? They are like outdoorsy stores. Not in like a fish and game sort of way, but more in a climb a mountain, sleep under the stars sort of way. I guess. So I am to speak at these stores. I am to inform people how to train for their first marathon. Cause you know, I wrote a sarcastic book about running. Hmmm. This has the potential to go very poorly. Very quickly. Well, actually, very longly. Cause this talking? It’s supposed to take awhile. Marathons are 26 miles, so I guess they require a lot of time to talk about them. Oy.

The REI Lady said to me, “You will start at 7pm, we’d really like for you to wrap it up by 8:30, so you have time to sign books.” Riiiighty-o. Do you know that an hour an a half is the average length of most movies? Feature length films? The ones that take years to write and produce and edit and present? Those very ones. And I’m supposed to stand up in front of people and talk or whatever for the equivalent of a whole movie? How the? What the? Oh! Maybe I’ll just PLAY a movie! That is a brilliant idea. Quick, what’s a good running movie? Chariots of Fire, right? I’ll put the song on a loop while I talk. There were also those two about that Prefontane (sp?) guy. He dies at the end of both though, so I don’t know if that is the best message to send to people. But then again, the movies are dramas, so they are probably 2 hours long, he is probably just in the height of his second act glory at an hour and a half, so that might work.

You know what is really funny in a not so funny sort of way? I really have no idea what I’m going to talk about for an hour an a half. Let’s hope they have a lot of questions. And perhaps a VCR.

Not So Cured

Shocker of shockers, Mountain Dew and popcorn didn’t quite cure me. I have been in bed all day yet again. Yet again rising for only food and some dessert. I can’t imagine why I don’t feel well.

I think my body is rebelling, I think it very much wants to be on my couch back home watching TV and eating Chinese take-out. It has humored me for this long and now it is just about done with this silly touring thing. It is expressing its disapproval in the form of body aches and exhaustion.

My head is clogged up and I can’t breathe or hear that well. I’m thinking that tomorrow’s morning show appearance is going to be simply fabulous. Don’t miss it if you are in San Diego. I may just stare blankly into the camera for my entire three minute segment. Could happen.

Funny thing, not a lot to report about today, as most of it was spent sleeping.

BUT I do have a video from a bathroom I visited here in San Diego. Well, I didn’t JUST visit the bathroom, I was actually in the restaurant and then I went into the bathroom. And then I went in again with my camera, because it was something that I knew you guys would want to see. Yes, I know I have a problem that needs to be addressed when it comes to cameras and bathrooms. But really, it can take a number in the Problems That Need to Be Addressed line. It’s a very long line.

Cured

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide thing. How do I know that? Because that is the Depressing Story of the Day that I had the joy of following this morning on San Diego morning television. Well, to be honest, I actually followed the story about how panda poop can be made into paper. Or something. And that’s not depressing so much as disgusting, so I guess that is a step in some direction for my television appearances.

Things are going okay here. I have been hit with a cold or flu of some sort, I’m not sure what sort. But it seems to be the sort that involves no energy and the desire to sleep 23 hours a day. (The other hour I enjoy eating something) I am feeling a little better now. This could have to do with several of my rock solid healing techniques.

1) The sleeping I mentioned earlier. Now, granted, I did only get a few hours sleep before I had to go inspire San Diego on morning TV, but the great thing about morning TV is that you can go, inspire and then be back in bed by like 8 am. I barely even had a chance to wake up and I was back in bed. And in that bed I remained for quite a many hours.

2) I woke up just long enough to eat some food and drink some Mountain Dew. I haven’t been feeling well so I’ve been drinking water instead of Mountain Dew. This was giving me a bitch of a caffeine headache and I think was contributing to my overall crappy feeling.

3) Then I woke up again and went and saw a movie. I felt like crap and probably should have stayed in bed, and probably infected the entire theater, but damnit if movies don’t make me feel better. These are the things I need in life: Movies and TV, at regular intervals. Without them I get weak and achy.

So then, I feel better and plan on maintaining this health with even more sleeping tomorrow. And perhaps a gallon of Nyquil before I go to bed.

I believe my book tour is about half over now. And I believe that I am very ready for it to be all the way over. Two months is too long to be away from your life, I’ve decided. And being away from your life doesn’t pay well, so it would be nice to return to my life and to the positive cash flow it offers. The little things in this life. These are what make me happy.

That and movie popcorn.

Oh My.

It has been ever so long since I wrote. Since Sunday it would seem. Not that days really mean anything to me. I tend to just look about two days ahead on my schedule at a time. I know where I am supposed to be in two days. I don’t particularly care what actual days of the week those are. Monday, Thursday, Sunday. All the same.

This week has been nice. Why? Because I got to come home. The good lord set me free from the frozen parts of this country and dropped me in California via a plane. How I love California. And planes for that matter. They go a little quicker than cars, it turns out. It took me two weeks to get to Minnesota. And 4 hours to get home. Did I mention I love planes?

One thing that planes are lacking in slightly is cargo space. It turns out that a lot of stuff fits in an SUV. A lot. And it is then quite difficult to check all that stuff onto a plane. Who woulda thought? We spent several hours and a trip to luggage section of Goodwill (suitcases for a $5!! Really pretty ones too!!) trying to figure out a way to get the SUV back to California on a plane. We ended up each having three bags and two carry-ons. We were fully ready to pay an arm and a leg, but for some reason the kind Baggage Checker Guy let it slide and didn’t charge us anything. God bless you Baggage Checker Guy.

Then we made it home. Well, to San Francisco. Which isn’t so much home. It is still a couple hours away from home. And that is not including the HOUR AND A HALF IT TOOK ME TO RENT A DAMN CAR. Let’s not get into that, because I fear my head may explode if I have to revisit exactly how close I was to killing someone at 1 a.m. in the Thrifty Car Rental place. It was not the best example of my patience.

But at least when it was all done I was in my very own bed. !!! Halle-friggin-lujah.

My bed, and my house and my TV are all very significant reasons why there hasn’t been a blog in quite sometime. I missed my home so much. I need to spend some quality time with it while I have the chance. My DVR alone requires hours of my attention. Do you know that I haven’t watched TV in like a month? Do you know that that is probably the first month in my entire life that I’ve gone without watching TV? Do you know that it’s not healthy for me to go without TV? I can’t tell you how happy I am to have reconnected with my TV and bed and couch. They missed me so and have welcomed me home with open arms and taped shows aplenty.

Tomorrow is my second of two free days, then I’m off for another month on the road. Who the hell do I think I am? The Rolling Stones? And who the hell do the Rolling Stones think they are? 22 years old? I can’t believe those guys are still touring. It’s exhausting going from town to town and not being able to just relax in your own house. I can’t imagine people who do it all year. But then again I might be able to better imagine it if I were making a million bucks a night. That might trigger the imagination a bit...

Tired

I’m tired.

I don’t have much to blog about today. And the things I can think of to blog about are going to take more effort than I really have to devote to blogging right now.

I will say that it is colder than a witch’s tit here. I was on TV today and while I was waiting to be on TV the TV had the time and temperature on the screen. It was noon. It as 37 degrees. What the hell is the sun even doing in Chicago? Why no warming?

One fun thing about being in a cold climate is that people figure out interesting ways to pass the time while they are forced to be inside. Hence a thing called Cornhole.

My friend plays this Cornhole game in a league and she was so kind as to allow me to attend this league last night. It’s like horseshoes, but with bean bags and a wooden thing with a hole cut in it. So I guess it’s not like horseshoes at all really. Other than you stand far away from the wooden thing with the hole and you throw a bean bag toward the wooden thing with the hole. If you get the bean bag in the hole you get 3 points, if you get it just on the wooden thing you get 1 point. Unless the other team does the same thing, then you get no points.

Here is an example of the proper form.

It basically takes place in a bar and the team my friend was playing was named, “Here for the Drink Specials.” So you kinda get the gist of the league. But it was fun and just random enough to be completely entertaining. It is also difficult enough that many, many of the people playing really don’t think that it is entertaining so much as it is very very serious and really quite important. You know how people can get when you involved throwing things.

In other news, I made a random compilation video of a couple of our stops. My good lord do I have a lot of video with which to make random videos. Maybe someday, when I return from my rise to fame, I will edit them all together for you. That will be quite an exciting day indeed.

Bored Blogging

I am driving in colorado.

I was previously driving in wyoming.

Before that, Utah.

Today has been just miles of fun.

So I have taken to blogging while I drive. Safe? Yeah probably not so much. But I have been going straight for hundreds of miles, so me thinks there aren't any major swerves coming up.

We are headed to Boulder. It is supposed to be nice there. Honestly, anything will be nice compared to Salt Lake. My lord I did not like it there. I think they designed the streets and freeways to either try to keep people out or to trap them in.

I'm thankful to have made it out. The city of salt and U-turns.

This is more than a little difficult, the blogging with one finger, so I shall go now.

Endless miles and tumbleweeds to you all...

Utah

We are in Salt Lake City now. 11 hours in the car. Three states. Now we are here.

I think it is quite funny that Utah, the land of Mormon is right next door to Nevada, the land of sin. As we were driving on the freeway there was this huge area in the middle of nowhere that had a bunch of casinos and hotels and neon lights and $5.99 Steaks. Then we saw a sign that said “Welcome to Utah”. And that is where all the fun stopped. Nevada had to build a city of sin right on the friggin’ border of Utah. Just to tempt them. Ha.

And speaking of $5.99 steaks. We had quite a lovely steak dinner this evening. We went to a steakhouse in the middle of Nevada and went ahead and ordered a steak. We ordered it medium- well. Methinks that whatever way you order your steak at this steakhouse you just get it the one way they prepare it. That way is well-leather. It was lovely. I ate a lot of the bake potato and corn.

We stopped and ate at the steakhouse because up until that point in the day (8 pm) we had eaten only food that had come from a minimart. Such food is a glorious thing, but occasionally it is a good idea to put something besides donnettes, beef jerky, cotton candy and chips into your body. Roll that all around with some Mountain Dew and you can see why we were happy to see a sign for a steak. Unfortunately, I think the steak might have actually come from the mini-mart too...

I’m off to bed. It is an hour later here. I think. I should look that up or something. So I actually show up on time to my event tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to keep the fans waiting. The two of them may get upset and leave. That is my average, about 2 people at every event. But see, if a store has an event with me then they end up ordering like 20 books and putting them out for people to see. This makes me stand out in huge bookstores and actually results in quite a few books being sold. Which is good. It does not necessarily result in anyone coming to the events. Which is embarrassing

The other night at the Fairfield Barnes and Noble the lady said that they had sold 11 books before I even arrived, because people noticed the poster for the book signing and then took a look at the book and decided to buy it. This was exciting. Less exciting was the fact that only one person actually showed up during my book signing time. My good friend Edwin, always the supporter, said, “It seems as if the poster of your book is actually selling more books than you in person.”

It’s a really good poster though...

Today

It sure does snow a lot in other states. A really lot.

Tonight we made our way from Bend, OR to the Portland, OR area. I will not go into detail about how much snow we encountered along the way, because my dear mother reads this blog and is not doing so well with my winter traveling plans.

We will be here until Sunday. I’m glad to be in one place for more than a few hours. Constantly being on the road is not nearly as much fun as all those truck drivers make it out to be. Maybe if we had a cool horn we could pull and honk. That might be the difference.

In our truck not only do we not have a cool horn, we also do not have much room. I am not driving, my Camera Guy Edwin is driving, so that I can try to remain Homeowner Dawn. I’ve got my laptop, my Blackberry and a wireless internet connection. It’s an office on wheels really. And again, it’s not as much fun as things on wheels usually are.

I am terribly impressed with the reach of this wireless internet thingy though. We were driving in the middle of nowhere today for about 95% of the day and yet I was still on the internet, and able to continue to do my work and get it to my clients. Technology can be amazing.

Another thing that is amazing? This picture:

Why? Why are we putting cheese inside of tater tots? Why? Are we just not wanting to deal with those last few years of our lives? Do we just need to take our arteries for a test drive every once in awhile?

I dunno.

What I do know:

Is that the Burger is definitely worthy of it’s own “ville”.

Tonight (post-cheesey tots, pre-Burgerville) I went to a book signing. And apparently the event took its name quite literally. I signed one book. No one else came. Well, that’s not true. Camera Guy Edwin and my Aunt and Uncle came. But everyone else was sane and decided that snow is not a fun thing to be out in.

Oh well. At least the evening included a trip to Burgerville...so all was not lost.

Dream in Motion Video

Dream in Motion

Tick, Tock

It turns out there is a little bit of planning that goes into a 10-week cross-country book tour/world saving adventure. Geez. Why does everything have to be so difficult? I’m officially in “Making Lists” mode. I am making lists of all the crap I have to do within the next couple of weeks.

1. Figure out what the hell to say at the 5 million different TV/Book Store/Running Events where I am scheduled to speak.
2. Drink Heavily.

My camera guy is here, he has moved into my house and we will begin filming soon. Did I tell you we are filming this whole thing for a documentary? We are. I’m like Ozzy Osborne here, with all the filming. Except with more cussing.

We had an opportunity to get my books in some cool gift baskets next week, so I got in touch with my publisher to see if they could give me the 40 books I needed. They had them at their offices, but I needed to put stuff in the books so that people who receive them know all about the tour/world saving adventures. So I drove down to the offices today and picked them up. And I then I signed them.

My lord in heaven.

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point my handwriting just stopped maturing into that of a regular functioning adult. It must have been circa grade 6 that I stopped any further development of my handwriting skills. I swear to you, my handwriting looks like a drunk, epileptic 4 year old got a hold of a pen and just went crazy (crazier than a drunk, epileptic 4 year old would be already). I try so hard to make my handwriting legible, and it seems that the more I try the more drunk the 4 year old gets.

So I’m sitting there in Kinko’s signing 40 books while offering commentary to my fellow shoppers, “Oh, that one is horrible, just horrible. I hope no one important gets that one.” “Oh, god, I’m actually ashamed of that one.” “Wow, that doesn’t look like anything resembling my name.” “Oh, god, I think the more think about them the worse they are getting.”

I think I need a signature stamp. Sure it’s cheesy, but at least then people would be able to distinguish who actually signed the book. As it is now they are all probably just going to wonder how it is this 4 year old sobered up long enough to write a whole book. And they will admire that little 4 year old’s ability to move beyond her disabilities and train for a marathon...

3. Learn how to write.
4. And probably spell too.