I couldn’t freakin’ see while I was sick, but I did read a little.

No, I didn’t read the dozen or so novels I brought home from the conference I’d just attended.

Instead I read all about “Palliative Care and Pain Management at the End of Life”. Light, uplifting material to be sure.

Okay it was dense and depressing, but I found it fascinating. In case you needed further proof there’s something a little off about me…

Okay, usually it’s “those who can’t do, teach” but after standing on line to vote and hearing the following conversation I’m amending that.

Teacher (who’d already pissed me off because the idiot couldn’t figure out whether to stand in the A-K line or the L-Z line): I’m here to vote.

Poll Worker: Your last name?

Dumb-ass teacher gives last name.

Poll Worker: You’re not in here. Are you sure you’re in the right district?

Teacher: I teach at the school next door.

Poll Worker: But do you live in this district?

Teacher: No I live in (names a town 30 minutes away in ANOTHER COUNTY)

Poll Worker: Well then you can’t vote here.

Teacher: Why not?

Poll Worker: Because you have to vote in your home district. Do you have the ballot that was mailed to you? It tells you exactly where to go.

Teacher: So what am I supposed to do?

I cannot stress how much effort it took to not tell her exactly what I thought she should do.

…It’s a job requirement.”

Okay, so I stole the line from this week’s episode of Castle, but it’s true!

Last night I dreamt I was training for my next half- marathon in a mall (I’d already done four miles and taken 30 seconds off my per mile pace) and couldn’t decide whether I should turn right or left at The Gap.

My fever’s been higher today so tonight’s dreams (assuming this stupid cough won’t keep me up ALL night) should be even more interesting.

So there’s this guy in my bldg I call the Crazy Russian (to be fair, I call his entire family the Crazy Russians). He spends an inordinate amount of time in his bathrobe…come to think of it, so does his wife (in her bathrobe, not his…that would be a whole other story).

I’ve never seen anyone else in my building in their nightclothes, but I see them with some regularity.

So I go down to get the mail and there’s the Crazy Russian in the lobby in his bathrobe. I silently curse the woman who insisted blinds cover the glass door to the garage, because now I never know who’s lurking in the lobby.

He’s picking up a delivery a box, flashing a little too much skin for my comfort level and his dog is stuck in bathrobe (it’s some little yappy thing that doesn’t like anyone born in America — the CR told me that once).

So I do my best to smile politely while I try to decide if the dog’s head (teeth bared) sticking out btwn the folds of fabric reminds me more of a baby or an alien (I decided alien because of the whole teeth thing).

Then the CR holds the elevator for me and seemed inordinately displeased when I said I’d take the stairs (I’d taken the stairs down, and I’ve run into him any number of times in the stairwell (usually when he’s in his bathrobe) so it’s not like I never take them.) He seemed to guess that I didn’t want to get in the elevator with him.

So here’s my question: Would you get in the elevator with a half-dressed Crazy Russian with his American-hating dog just to be polite?

I’m a terrible person.

I am also an aggressive street-crosser. I sometimes forget that not everyone else is, which is how we left poor Maggie and Thelma (polite Canadians that they are) on the other side of the road the other day.

I thought they were with us (Jen Colgan gets bonus points for sticking with me) but when I turned around they were across four lanes of traffic. It was raining and windy, and we still had to register for the conference. When Maggie waved for us to go on without them, we did.

And the guilt ate at me for hours, then days.

I just returned from a writing conference and my head is spinning. The nuggets of wisdom that were doled out by best-selling authors from one workshop to another seemed to be polar opposite advice.

The only thing they all seemed to agree on is that you should finish the damn book…unless of course that book isn’t working….

I once knew this guy (in his 60s) who’d send out these 10 page letters every time he completed the New York City Marathon. I called them his Marathon Missives.

I never understood why he thought everyone would be interested in every detail of his race. Now that I’ve conquered the challenge of a half marathon I completely understand. For today, I’ll just subject you to the weather report. (It was MISERABLE!)

I completed the United Healthcare Half Marathon (part of the Amica Marathon) in Newport, RI on Sunday October 18th in the middle of a freakin’ Nor’Easter! It POURED for the entire race. The winds were sustained (this race hugs the coastline so the majority of the time the wind was coming right off the ocean) at 25-25 mph (with gusts up to 45) and the temperature with the windchill was in the high 30’s. There was a Wind Advisory and a Coastal Flood Warning.

From the Amica site: “In some of the worst imaginable running conditions, over 2,500 runners finished this year’s Amica Marathon, UnitedHealthcare Half Marathon, and Team Relay.”

And I was one of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There comes a point in every book when I know, I absolutely know, that I can’t possibly finish it. (Usually this point is around the middle and pretty much every scene after that.)

I’m convinced I don’t know what I’m doing. That I was crazy to think I could do it. There is no way, no how, I am ever going to get to “the end”.

The solution to that is to plant my butt in the chair and push, push, push on through. Usually I’m pleasantly surprised at the end.

As I look out my window at the SNOW BLOWING SIDEWAYS I find myself thinking that I can’t complete this half marathon. There’s a freakin’ Nor’Easter blowing up the coast. 13.1 miles under optimuim conditions is challenging, but now it’s gonna be cold and wet and windy.

And I’m pissed. I worked so hard to be ready for this. 20 weeks of training and Mother Nature decides to get cute? Screw her!

I’ve got a t-shirt which says, “Dead Last Finish beats Did Not Finish which greatly trumps Did Not Start” on one side and “Have the Courage to Start” on the other.

I’m going to step up to that starting line on Sunday (which is the equivalent of planting my butt in the chair) and I’m going to finish. I may be dead last, but I won’t have given up.

(I hope)

On Monday the chance of rain for my half-marathon was 20 percent.

Tuesday it was up to 30 percent.

Wednesday 40 percent.

And now weather.com has a “coastal flood statement” up (I’m totally wussing out and NOT reading it) hence my hysterical laughter.