Read Much, Run Far

More road trip fun:

Friday: More sleeping in, and then we headed out for Michelle's (but not before another stop at Oberweis--teehee). The trip was very short, and when we got there, it was still fairly early in the day. We decided to go to Rockford to a mall and just look around. The only store we really went into was Waldenbooks. I folded and bought two books: Otherworld: City of Golden Light by Tad Williams, and Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. Teehee. I have so many books now--still working on Aimee Bender, and also I borrowed Growing Wings from Hannah. Sometimes I wish I read a lot faster than I do. But I couldn't imagine reading any way but the way I do--slowly, so as to savor.

Mark and I also had a rather ridiculous episode. We were all joking around about how no one would want to live with me, and he said he wouldn't either, and also called me a jerk. I knew he was joking, but just from principle I wanted him to take it back. Then I started to think...well, I am kind of a jerk a lot of the time. I mean, to reflect on it, I'm just not a very good person to Mark a lot of the time. Sometimes I feel like with him it's about what I want rather than what I actually need or what we both want, and that it can come at the expense of him or his feelings. It wasn't really resolved then, although we did make up. He and I had a tearful conversation the other night in the gazebo in Standish Park, that came closer to clearing it up. Ridiculous, the whole lot of it. We're both worried that we don't do enough for the other, which is just silly if you think about it. I think the root of it is that I'm still just insecure. Maybe he is too.

The first night at Michelle's house we watched an episode of the X-Files, ate pizza and wings, watched the X-Files movie, and then played Mario Bros. I got kind of frustrated with that. I mean, there's only so much of a video game I can take before I get bored. Finally they decided to call it a night and we all zonked.

Saturday: We slept in a lot...and Mark and I had trouble getting out of bed, so I kind of got the feeling Hannah and Michelle were annoyed with us. Probably just in passing, though. Once we got going, we decided to head up to Wisconsin and run on the Beloit cross country course. It wasn't a long drive, but then we simply could NOT find the damn park. Finally we went to the Beloit campus and asked directions at the library. Fittingly, a cross country runner was right there and was able to draw us a map, so we found the park with no more trouble and ran about 25 minutes around the course. It was a nice run, full of memories. I remembered running together with Michelle down the forest path, and how we'd promised thereafter to always try to run together and push each other. But then I got mono and she's always been way ahead of me since. I haven't given up on that promise. And it did come true more than once, most notably this past indoor season when we ran the 3K together and ran together for almost the entire race. She led for five laps, then I led for five, and then she pulled ahead a little, but we still finished within 12 seconds of each other.

More tomorrow...