Letting my breath out

After four long months I once again have health insurance. I need not emphasize what a huge relief that is. It's one less thing to worry about, anyway.

Work is enjoyable, for the people and the work itself if not for the overall experience of trying to get anything done with Kinko's. Honestly, it's like trying to get a PC and a Mac to work together. I'm a PC girl myself, always have been, so working with Kinko's reminds me of those times I've tried to make sense of a Mac. It's getting there, but it's different and frustrating. But the work itself appeals to my anal side and as always I enjoy my co-workers. Kinko's hired on three out of the four bindery people and the fourth was hired on as a scanner upstairs, so things seem to have worked out for the moment.

I've gotten on a Sharon Kay Penman kick lately. I read her Here Be Dragons years ago and bought the other two books in the trilogy but never got around to them. So I reread Dragons, then went on to Falls the Shadow and and now just over halfway through The Reckoning. It's fast-paced fare, not badly written, with enough rollicking action, verbal jousting, and sordid medieval situations (marrying and having sex at 12 or 13, etc.) to keep anyone satisfied. Although woman are usually treated like dirt, Penman at least keeps to stronger women for her main characters, and for her male main characters (at least the "good guys"), men who respect women. Otherwise it might not be so much fun for me, realistic as it might be. I read The Bookseller of Kabul last year, and the treatment of women there was so infuriating that I couldn't enjoy it (that wasn't the only reason though). I think it got to me so much because it's the present (or near to it) and these medieval romances are firmly couched in the past.

Anyways.

I ran the Country Music Marathon just over a week ago. As I said, most poetically, after the race, "I just got my ass handed to me by that race." It was the hardest race I've ever done. Constant hills, persistant headwind, you name it. I wasn't running for time this time, since my training was a little spotty, and that's a VERY GOOD THING. =) But I did have a good time and I certainly felt really hardcore since I finished. We talked to some people afterwards and everyone agreed it was the hardest marathon EVER.*

Mark ran the half marathon which went on at the same time and he finished as well. I'm very proud of him. I think he may be hooked. There's a half marathon/5K this September in Bloomington that I signed up for, and when I asked him if he wanted to do the 5K, he said he wanted to go ahead and do the half instead. Sweet. I'm excited too. I haven't done a half marathon since 2000, so I'm eager to see what my time will be. I'm also pretty sure I'm going to give Chicago another whirl this fall. We'll see.

*Exaggeration. There's a marathon that is run up Mount Olympus in Greece. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a little harder than this one. In the spectrum of marathon course, I think this one in Nashville could be called "challenging."