It's getting late & I'm not done with my evening quite yet. Today was a treat, Tiger Mountain was pretty & the house sure cleaned up handsomely, a nice capper for a long weekend.

While perusing the usual blogs, I saw Drew's post on Christopher Walken. I remember seeing Christopher Walken in the Deer Hunter, remember how shocking his character's choices were to me, how affecting. In the article, Christopher Walken talks about how he called on the trauma of camp to help him capture the despair of his character's final scenes. His description: ''It was just awful. It was in the Poconos. I remember being so miserable. I was really in despair. To me, the end of that movie is just like camp.'' Camp.

Home, between errands, after spending the weekend with friends. This year was the 20th anniversary of the astrology conference & I ended up volunteering to help out with the family business. On the second evening I spent with this group, there was a party with dancing, men in tuxes & women in gowns. I got to join the happy family in the center, relishing the words of long time friends & applause for the Lady next to me. She is the matriarch of the family, having moved mountains to make this annual event happen. Her daughter, a beloved friend, was checking in with all of the guests, making sure that everyone had what they needed. The granddaughter, grown into a young woman, sat with her boyfriend in his navy whites, and entertained the table with her wry humor & quick smile. The evening, like the entire weekend, was full of hugs & warm wishes, palpable support. It was a really lovely thing to be a part of.

Tomorrow, we (just two of us now), are heading up Tiger Mountain. Tonight is a scramble of chores, work & getting stuff ready for a hike. Also, tonight is me being a bit goofy with tiredness & estatic to be home, sweet home. I'll get some much needed puttering done tonight, if I get my druthers.

I'm on my way out to the annual astrological conference. Managed to get a run in this morning. One day away from finishing the first week of training. My time this morning was better than it has been at the gym - 11:30/mile. This week's goal is 15 miles total. The way we've mapped it out, I have one more week to muck about before locking in to a fairly rigid schedule. Here's where I got my schedule: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,5033,s6-51-56-0-633,00.html.

I'm training with a friend at work. So far, we've run at the gym. I'm beginning to see the drawbacks of gym only training. For one, the equipment points resolutely toward big screen tv's. At 6:30 in the morning, news is the only game in town & no matter what I do, I'm confronted with gruesome news programs and chipper anchor folk.

Jason and I mapped out runs in our neighborhood and - just for fun - mapped a run to the new downtown Seattle Public Library, built by Rem Koolhaas of the Rotterdam firm, OMA. That's 15 miles, round trip, from our place. The library looks swell, the interior we could see looks well thought out -- Jason & I got there after closing, so making the round inside the library will be another adventure.

Gotta run...

I signed up for the marathon I'll do this year, the first I've ever done, just yesterday. Training starts Monday. I get to do yoga again (had dropped it for May) and probably will stop strength training. I'm aiming to start out at 15 miles per week and do around that number for a few weeks, before starting any weeks with long distance runs in them. I just started researching stretching today. I've been sort of half-hazard with my stretching & seems like that's what's important to build in, about now.

Yesterday was a painting day. I'm working on three. I've got in-progress scans from poloroids of two of them:


click here and here for larger versions.

I'm jazzed that I signed up for the marathon. That & art will be my two big things through October. It's nice work towards having only a few things to concentrate on for a stretch.

Got home tonight around seven, feeling a bit blue & after a workout. The sky was still bright. I picked up the peonies that had arrived - a gift to me from me & went inside.

Jason just went out for water. We caught up briefly after he got home from a haircut. He invited me to ride bikes down to breakfast, before work tomorrow. Hopefully, the weather will hold out & we'll still feel like doing that. We plan to buy the car tomorrow, so this would be a great way to blow off steam before we head back into the fray. I'm painting tonight, Jason's practicing some crazy electric sax while we watch a movie.

So, that's where I'm heading.

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Workout update: Didn't do a lot today, just 45 minutes of 15 min./mile. I'll have to get the average min/mile for me soon, so I'll have a base to compare to. Jason suggests that I aim for 13 min/mile, a conservative goal, since that will be enough time to finish the race, before the support stands pack up.

Art update: am working on a canvas with one of the hothouse pictures, from the U.W. I'm a bit stuck at the detail - there are many small leaves & so it's difficult to decide how I'm going to come up with a visual solution for that.

I got my first car when I was 28 years old, a '68 Volkswagen bug. It was baby blue, where it wasn't rusted & I bought it for $400 from the guy I worked with at the Cornish photo lab. The car didn't last long - it needed to be babied & I wasn't any good at that. I dropped it off at El Centro de la Raza - they have a donation program for folks who want to donate their cars. I've had three other cars, all purchased used and none long lasting.

Yesterday was a day of car shopping. Jack won the title of 'most fun sales person'. He won that by recounting his father's military history in the Vietnam war, his recent break up with Emily (she nagged him overly much) and by sharing his love for a good, local sushi cafe. We went to two other dealerships, got to test drive three cars and had thai food at the Royal Palm for lunch. We're done for the weekend, with this car buying project. We didn't get a car last night, but we're getting closer & have another night scheduled to do this, later in the week.

It was beautiful yesterday. It was sunny, then there was rain with the sun, then hail, then more sun. We drove across the University bridge into downtown Seattle and Lake Union was luminous before tree lined, house-filled streets stacked like San Francisco's hills, but greener. The sky was dotted with clouds & a clear blue. We drove all over, up to Richmond Beach and then to Lake City Way and finally, downtown.

Today, I've finished cleaning up from Friday's company & am now getting ready to work. It's still gorgeous outside & I hope to get out there later - but honestly, I'm still wiped from walking out of the dealership when the sales person couldn't meet our price. I don't care if I go outside or see one more person today. I'm feeling very quiet.

Oh, except I did call my mom today. Wished her a good day & asked after her goings on. It was a lovely call, as was the call to Jason's mother. I missed my sister by phone, she was out marching in downtown DC. I'll have to catch up with her later this week.

Ok, best get going...

Jason's suggesting this marathon and this one, among others. I'm looking at this one, too.

Trainingwise - so far, I've discovered that my endurance isn't so hot. Jason has mentioned that I'll have to run for at least an hour, hour and a half - as well as cross-train, in order to be in shape for any marathon. Six months should be enough time to train, but I'll have to get cranking. My preference is to continue to strength train and do yoga, such lovely and slow exercises. But, I know that I've got to build in swimming, biking & more running into my workouts. Gotta get that endurance going, which will take time, I gather.

Art night: I've been altering images tonight, just before I started writing, changing the image ratios to better fit a 24x36 composition. I've printed out the results on glossy photo paper. That was very rewarding. I'm going to paint until I drop.