marching forward.

You can't tell from this photo, but running across the bridge with my sister on Saturday was COLD. AS. HECK. We were told that morning -- (I guess that morning was yesterday, but time has a funny way of moving like molasses from day-to-day, and very quickly with regards to the next thing I'm going to write) -- that there are nine weeks left leading up to the marathon, and I think I might've lost a little bit of my lunch thinking about it later.

Nine weeks to run a marathon. That's a quarter of a 100 miles.

And while I know it's not an insurmountable goal, it's still a feat I had resigned myself years ago to never achieving. I hate running. I mean, I like it, sort of. But by mid-late run, no matter what the distance -- 3, 7, 13 miles -- I don't feel very good. Like I'm being squeezed in a psychological vice, reminding me that I used to smoke a lot (I don't anymore), that I really loathe sporty girls with swishing ponytails, that humans aren't supposed to be outside in this weather unless they're working the land, or going from somewhere indoors to somewhere else, indoors.

Still, I am having a good time with it all. I kind of enjoy the interest many of my friends have taken in the athletic (mostly male, some female) or nutritional (mostly female, some male) aspects of training. I have noticed that running, often, through the gray winter has positively affected my mental health [seasonal affect disorder be damned!]. I get to hang out with my sister a ton, just short of her getting completely sick of me. I haven't met a single objectionable person who works for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. And I have loved that raising money for cancer research on behalf of my second mother and mentor has allowed me to be back in touch with a lot of wonderful people who are supporting my efforts.

Anyway, I'll try and do a better job of keeping my adventures updated, but for now, rest assured that while I'm adding mileage every week, I'm keeping the swish out of my ponytail.

spotted on Mott Street...

...I will wire five dollars to anyone who can come up with a good explanation as to what a "Teabag Variety Hour" might be.

Happy Chinese New Year, all.

in the 13th mile...

...of my first race. New York Road Runner's Bronx Half Marathon. Sunday, February 11th. two hours five minutes and fifty seconds. yahoozle.

business travel is for grownups.

I'm in a hotel room in Cambridge looking across the Charles River at the Prudential tower wondering if business travel ever starts to feel natural.

I haven't stayed at a ton of hotels in my life. Growing up, my parents were very practical people, and would almost exclusively arrange driving distance vacation stays at rented homes or condos on nearby beaches. We certainly didn't fly anywhere, and in turn, we didn't really sleep in places that my parents weren't able to make into a familiar environment for us, at least for the time that we were going to spend there. They always outfitted these places with familiar snacks, toothpastes, towels, stuffed animals.

Finally, one year, we heard we were going to Orlando. My parents requested brochures and received them in the mail some days later, including a promotional VHS tape profiling all the Disney resort hotels and amusement parks. I remember watching the seven or eight-minute video several times over, dreaming of cotton candy and water rides and of filling autograph books full of characters' loopy signatures. I had crafted in my head the perfect vision of sliding glass doors leading from our hotel room onto a terrace overlooking the magical kingdom.

But after begging to stay at a Wilderness Lodge (log cabins and personal golf carts!), or the Polynesian (grass skirts and weekend luaus!), my parents would ultimately find a Red Roof Inn or a Howard Johnson hotel within Orlando city limits but outside the boundaries of Disney territory (I'm not sure such a thing exists anymore). Thinking about it now, I'm not sure how they managed this without that funny thing we've all come to depend upon: the internet.

And truth be told, after the initial disappointment of finding out that we weren't staying at a resort hotel , I'd forget all about where we were staying when we pulled into the toll booths along the highway marked DISNEY.

I suppose I could get into the nuts and bolts of a vacation with the family Yee (bless my poor parents for taking three small children with small bladders to an amusement park in a state not known for its perfect weather or its short waits), but that was all a tangent to say that hotels have always been a bit of a novelty for me, and yet, a big part of the scenery for so many experiences that I've had since my first stays at roadside Orlando hotels.

Right now I'm sitting in a room with a lovely view of Boston, pictures of South Station on the walls, a king size bed with super nice linens on it, thinking back to all of those trips. Family vacations to Florida, hotels in Italy, Asia, and now Boston.

Business travel is weird because it gives you all that solo time you keep wishing you had time for when you're in your home environment, and suddenly you start getting nostalgic for the times when you were in a tiny, sterile, over-airconditioned hotel room with four other people you call your family.

molly.

A great woman died yesterday.

I met Molly Ivins not a few months ago in the plush waiting room of a cancer hospital in New York late one night, when a handful of us were keeping vigil for a very dear friend who was a patient there.

She was much taller than I imagined. And she smiled a lot.

I only had a moment to say something to her when I was introduced, and I admit I was a little nervous. I mean, this is Molly. Ivins. we're talking about.

"I'm such a BIG fan of yours."

And she replied, in her gentle Southern drawl, "Well, aren't you sweeet."

And then she moved deeper into the waiting room where she was enveloped by kisses and embraces from friends and loved ones who had been waiting for her.