20 Cornelia Street

Sunday, September 13

Colorado Relay

Jillian and I in Frisco just before she sets out on her second run.

I just got back from Denver, Colorado where I completed a 174 mile relay race with a team of 9 other runners. We were a mix of coworkers, friends, strangers, boys and girls, and all had an awesome time running from Georgetown to Carbondale in 28 hours and 26 minutes. We each ran three legs of around 18 miles each starting at 5:30 am Friday morning and ending Saturday at 10:15 am. I ended up doing 22 miles - my longest distance yet. The scenery was gorgeous and everyone did so well. We're already planning to do it again next year!!

The team heading to the van after my last run. That's Jillian and the pink and me in the orange in the foreground.

At the end of my last run. It was five miles on a cattle road through a valley. The mountains were incredible, and made me forget about all the brutal hills I was running up!

Getting ready for my second leg of 11 miles along Highway 6. I started at 12:46 am after two hours sleep in the back of the van. I'm all decked out in reflective gear, waterbottles, and my headlamp. It was just me, the mountains, the stars and a dark, dark road.

Just about finished with my first leg of 6 miles. This one was at 10,000 feet! My lungs hurt for the first mile, but then it was okay and I ran a great time of 9 minute splits!

The team split up into two vans - runners 1-5 and 6-10 plus the two drivers. This was my van going left to right in the back: Tara, Paul, Alisa, Les, Me and Reid in the front.

Me on my first run with lungs about to burst!

Melanie Visits!

My good friend Melanie came for a visit from Seattle last weekend! We went out to Coney Island for the day and had a blast playing carnival games (as seen above, she had just set the buzzer off, but was so close to winning a creepy James Brown doll - too bad), riding roller coasters, getting (fake) tattoos, and eating lots of delicious fair food. It was an amazing day and of course so good to see her!!

Ales training for the annual Coney Island Hot Dog Eating contest - he had four hot dogs, complete with chili, cheese, onions and sauerkraut - yum?

Melanie and Carlos on the Wonder Wheel - it was so scary!

Tuesday, September 8

Governor's Island

Kate and I took the ferry from Brooklyn out to Governor's Island on Saturday. A long time ago it belonged to the Native Americans before it was bought for a few ax heads by a Dutch guy for his own personal use. The Dutch Government soon put it an end to that and took it over. For a few decades it traded hands between the Dutch and the British, and was eventually used as a Confederate prison during the Civil War. The military used it up until 1960 when it was transferred to the Coast Guard. Officers and other personnel lived there until it was sold to the "people of New York (ie. ME)" in 2003. It's a great spot for views of Southern Manhattan, picnicking, riding bikes, and more. It was a beautiful day for it!

Bar on a Barge

Kate has a friend who is part of the Manhattan Sailing School. He was our "in" to the bar on the barge Friday night where only guests of the sailing students can go. We took a boat from the financial district out to a barge by the Statue of Liberty and had a few drinks and a great view of the city at night.

Kate Billman, me and Kate

This is the dock where we took the small boat from out to the barge. The big yacht on the right in the background is Johnny Depp's! I will continue to return to this spot until he sees me and invited me on his boat. I'll keep you posted.

Wednesday, September 2

My Birthday

I turned 29 a few weeks ago and celebrated with a pub crawl through the West Village. All my friends came, it was so much fun! We visited The Blind Tiger, Kettle of Fish, Wylfie, (Cafe Amore's for pizza) and Slaughtered Lamb. The last stop is pictured above - that's me with Kavita, Esther and Priya. I have on my birthday present from Kate - a beautiful gold and grey necklace, and my birthday present from Kavita, a whistle to keep the group moving!

Dave and Alex at Blind Tiger sharing a pint:

Esther, Emily, me, Jenny and Rachel at Blind Tiger:

Sunday, August 30

Alice and Brian's Wedding Celebration

Meredith, Molly and I went up to Portsmouth, NH a few weeks ago to celebrate with Alice and Brian. They had a small, family wedding back in May, then a big party in August just for their good friends.We spent all day on the beach playing volleyball and swimming, then met up that night at a beautiful lodge overlooking a lake for cocktails, BBQ and dancing. Alice looked beautiful! And she and Brian seem so happy. It was great to see them and catch up with lots of old Granville friends.

Wednesday, August 26

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Hello baby Graham! We had a great weekend celebrating mom and dads' 40th wedding anniversary with Jamie, Becky, Gavin, Graham, Aunt Connie, me and Alex. Graham is so sweet and just starting to smile and laugh, although he's still pretty serious most of the time - with a very furrowed brow! I don't know what he has to be so concerned with, but he is sure thinking hard about something important. We went for boat rides, and on the jet skis, grilled out and most of all got to be together. It was a wonderful long weekend.

Book Reviews

Are you there Vodka? It's me Chelsea - This is Chelsea Handler's second book of humorous essays. I've never seen her show, but all of her books have been on the bestseller list FOREVER so I checked it out out of curiousity. SO funny! Some are kind of shocking - think Sex and the City extreme escapades, but many made me laugh out loud. I'm definitely getting the other two now. If you need a quick, fun read, and aren't too easily offended (and a woman), read this!
Let the Great World Spin - This won the National Book Award last year and it's so well deserved. The writing is just beautiful and it's a great portrait of NY in the 70's.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - If you like Pride and Prejudice, then you will love this. Somehow, this author worked in zombies and ninjas into this Austen classic. It is hilarious!
Saving Sammy - This book just came out and is the best thing I've read since Born to Run. It's about a boy who very suddenly starts to display OCD symptoms at the age of 12. It gets to the point where this previously brilliant math student, outgoing, friendly kid, stopped bathing, eating, and was so debilitated by his ticks that he couldn't leave the house or sleep. His mother perserved with doctor after doctor and finally found the cause that saved his life. It's hear-breaking, but worth it, as it does have a very happy ending.
Born to Run - I know I label almost every book on here as soooooooo good, but the truth is, I only post about the ones I really, really like. And this one tops them all. I'm not kidding, this book is incredible. It will inspire you to not only get out there and run, but to be a better person. There are so many interesting things in this book I can't begin to list them all. Let's just say I learned about a native Mexican tribe of the fastest runners on earth; ultramarathoners who run 100s of miles through mountains and deserts; and how homo sapiens overcame the neanderthals by becoming long distance runners and so much more. And it's told in a narrative story that keeps you turning the page. Read this book.
The Lost City of Z by David Grann. This is a nonfiction account of a great explorer in the early 1900s who was one of the first Europeans to map out the Amazon. It's incredibly well researched and written, and is a thrilling adventure story.
Nabeel's Song (aka The Poet of Baghdad, as it was renamed in paperback) This is the true story of the poet, Nabeel Yasin. He was born and raised in Baghdad in the '50s before such a harsh regime took over. Universitites flourished, women were encouraged to go to school, and opposition to the government wasn't punishable by death. He had to flee in the '80s when he was persecuted for his writings and continues to this day to live in Europe with his family. It's such a good book! Very well written, you would think it's a novel. What a different look at a city that we only hear about in terms of war and bombs.
Ship Ablaze. This is an incredible book! It has a bit of a morbid theme, as it focuses on a 1904 steam boat fire on the Hudson River that killed almost 1000 people, but don't let that stop you! The author describes in such fascinating detail the people aboard the ship and what it was like in turn of the century New York. I highly recommend it!
Marley and Me, by John Grogan. For anyone who's a pet lover, especially a dog lover, this book is for you. It is such a sweet story of a man and his out-of-control dog. It's funny and sad - just a great read.
The Kabul Beauty School, by Deborah Rodriguez is the best book!! It's such an incredible true story about an eccentric hairdresser from Michigan who picks up and moves to Afghanistan to open a beauty school. The point is to help the women there gain some independence from their husbands and earn money for themselves. It's a crazy story, I can't believe it's true, but such a good read.
The Geography of Love, by Glenda Burgess. This is a nonfiction WONDERFUL love story. It's so beautifully written and is so touching. It's basically about a woman finding love late in life and then how she deals with her love's cancer diagnosis. Read it (with a tissue)!
Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, by Daniel Wallace. Wallace is the author of Big Fish, you may have seen the movie. I wasn't a fan of it, but this title intrigued me and I really enjoyed it. It takes place in the 1950s South and follows Henry, a magician, through the tales of his circus coworkers. It's very moving/entertaining fiction. It's a quick read that is tough to put down. I finished it with a better understanding of that time period and our perception of truth. I recommend it.
The Appeal, by John Grisham. At first, I really hated this book. It's rather slow, and there's not too much action like A TIME TO KILL or some of his other classics. It's more of a, "I'm John Grisham, and I've written so many bestsellers I don't need to worry about that anymore, instead, I'm going to teach you a lesson about the law." Well, I wanted a commercial, mindless, action/thriller, not a law lesson. So I ened the book in frustration. Then I thought about it a bit and realized, learning isn't so bad. Still, I wouldn't recommend it.
The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost. Okay, get over the title, and this book is a really fun read. Maarten and his girlfriend move to Tarawa, a remote island in the South Pacific and spend two years trying to make sense of a conflicted culture torn between tradition and modern day. The setting is at once an island paradise, and an imploding infrastructure. Maarten writes with humor and candidness, teaching the reader about this distant land and making you laugh out loud while you do so. (Plus I'm helping to edit his next two books, so I'm a little biased).
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I've been hearing people rave about this author for a long time, but shied away from her stuff because so much of it is fiction. However, that was a HUGE mistake! She is amazing. And even though she writes mainly about Indian culture and the clash of older, Indian generations, with younger, Americanized ones, underneath the surface her themes are universal. Everyone should read this collection of stories!
The Unlikely Lavendar Queen, by Jeannie Ralston. This was a great book! She's a successful journalist who meets a National Geographic photographer and they fall in love. She loves Manhattan, and he needs the country. Somehow he convices her to move to Texas in the middle of nowhere and then manages to get her to try planting lavender fields. She's a great writer who puts a comic spin on life's ups and downs. She's a bit whiny at times, but this is a great memoir of a life turned upside down.
The Lace Reader. This book was all the rage at BookExpo America as the big summer book, but I thought it stank. Well, maybe the hype was just too much so my expectations were too high, but the storyline of a family who can see the future by reading lace, just didn't do it for me. I recommend you skip this and read something with a more cohesive plot!
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. This book would be really hard to read if you have a daughter. However, if you can get past the gruesome act in the beginning, it is a beautiful story told from the point of view of a young girl. It's also a very interesting look at the after life and what happens to us when we pass. Some parts were hard to hear, but overall, it is an amazing read.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, Xiaolu Guo. A fictional account of a Chinese girl studying English in London. This is her perspective on Western culture and its sharp contrast to the Chinese way of life. It drags a bit in the middle, but is definitely worth the read for a new perspective and a good laugh.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jamie mocked this guy, but I think it's pretty incredible he wrote the entire book while paralyzed, by blinking his left eye. Insane. Aside from that, it's a beautiful, while heart breaking, look at life and freedom. I was so impressed by it.
sTORI TELLING, Tori Spelling's autobigraphy. I'm not ashamed to say I read this...and LOVED it. For any 90210 fans, it's a guilty pleasure/must read.
Devil in the White City, Erik Larson - Highly Recommend!